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Industrial Liaison Group:
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Welcome to the fourth issue of the Structural Biology newsletter from Diamond!
The scientific and technical teams at Diamond have been working hard to enhance your experience as a user with a series of new developments and upgrades. Pixel area detectors are now a common feature of the all MX beamlines and have dramatically changed the way we collect data. Our new data acquisition GUI greatly improves the sample management and user interactions with the beamline.
Other popular new features on the beamlines include automated sample centering, the crystal washer and the mini-kappa goniometer
We hope that this newsletter will help to keep you up to date with the very latest developments, updates and events on our structural biology beamlines. If you have any ideas or suggestions for events that you would find interesting or useful, please do let us know at [email protected]
Recent upgrades to beamline I04 include the implementation of a mini-kappa goniometer, a new focussing system using compound refractive lenses and restructuring of the data collection scripts used by GDA.
Read more here....
Since January 2015, a new robotic sample changer has been deployed on beamlines I03, I04 and I04-1. The new robot, BART, has improved exchange times, increased sample capacity significantly and is more tightly integrated into the beamline control systems which means reliability has also improved. Find out more here...
Fragment screening is a well-established approach in the development of novel compounds for drug discovery, yet nowhere has it been accessible as public facility. Diamond are now offering a world-first service called XChem, one-stop-shop that allows screening fragments by the most sensitive technique available, namely X-ray crystallography. Read more here....
Auto-processing pipelines are now an essential and constantly developing part of the MX beamline package. Autoprocessing helps users decide how to collect the best data and plan the most efficient use of the available beamtime. As a result, users not only get the optimum results from their samples but can also often achieve these in shorter timescales. Read more here...
Solution small angle X-ray scattering (also known as protein SAXS or bioSAXS is a powerful tool for analysis of the structure of proteins in solution. It can be used for a wide range of protein types and solution conditions. Read more here...
• The autoprocessing pipeline xia2 is now able to use the new data processing software DIALS (http://dials.diamond.ac.uk/) for indexing and integration of the diffraction images. In addition, the resolution limit of data automatically processed by xia2 is now determined using CC½ rather than I/sig(I) or Rmerge.
• A New Pilatus 6M detector has been installed on I04-1.
• Automatic alignment strategy for the use of mini-kappa is incorporated in the strategy calculation and easy to find on ISPyB.
• All MX beamlines now have an interactive screen in the experimental hutch which allows users to register puck positions in the sample changer dewar. Information about the puck positions is automatically linked to ISPyB and GDA.
• I03, I04 and I04-1 are now fitted with the new sample changer BART which replaced the Actor robots.
MX BAG training takes place 2-3 times annually at Diamond. Let us know if you or a colleague would like to take part please let us know on [email protected]
If you would like to receive the Structural Biology Newsletter by email, please let us know [email protected].
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