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Many challenging protein complexes and medically important macromolecules yield only very small crystals. VMXm will have a beamsize of less than 0.5 μm and use novel X-ray optics and electron beam imaging methods to precisely align the tiniest protein crystals into the beam, in vacuo, and measure X-ray diffraction data from them.
The ability to tune the X-ray energy will allow additional information to be obtained from heavy atoms within the macromolecules, aiding structure determination by multicrystal SAD or MAD methods. In many ways VMXm will be a hybrid X-ray/ cryo-EM instrument making use of methods for sample preparation from cryo-electron-microscopy, imaging from scanning electron microscopy, and diffraction data collection methods from X-ray crystallography.
VMXm is currently under construction and is scheduled for first user operations in early 2018.
For more information on VMXm, or to discuss potential applications, please contact Principal Beamline Scientist Dr Gwyndaf Evans: [email protected]
The VMXm team (l-r) Emma Beale, Anna Warren, Jose Trincao, and Gwyndaf Evans.
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