In addition to the beamline experimental stations, Diamond provides an extensive range of support facilities for users from day one. Preparation laboratories, office space and meeting rooms are housed in the synchrotron building itself, and a Guesthouse for overnight accommodation is just a short walk away. A restaurant is available providing breakfast, lunch and evening meals, including weekends. Users also have access to the extensive library and information services provided at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

The MX support laboratories are situated adjacent to the MX beamlines. We currently have a microbiological room with -80C freezer, Class II microbiological hood, shaking incubators, floor-standing centrifuge and cell lysis equipment. This allows us to carry out any microbiological work in one place.

In addition, one room is set up for protein purification and characterisation work, and one room is geared towards protein crystallography. We also have one more general purpose laboratory for routine lab work. The protein lab has an AKTA purifier with a selection of columns to aid protein purification, gel electrophoresis equipment and a spectrophotometer capable of analysing 0.7µl of sample.

The protein crystallography laboratory has a microscope with an image capturing camera, and incubators for temperature controlled experiments. We have a Rigaku Free-Mounting system which is available for users on selected beamlines. We aim to have supplies of plastic consumable items, cryoprotectants and some heavy atom compounds for isomorphous replacement experiments.

Each room is equipped with a PC to allow rapid access to online information as well as enabling scientists to keep records of laboratory work. Each PC has a barcode reader attached for tracking samples. These PCs can also be used to check PiMS records.

Users of the MX beamlines will have limited access to these laboratories; however any can be used on request.

To enquire about using the MX support facilities, please contact the beamline team.