Virtually Visit Diamond Light Source

Diamond uses around 6-7MW of power, about the same as around 2500 homes.

Diamond is jointly funded by UKRI:Science and Technology Facilities Council (86%) and the Wellcome Trust (14%)

Lots of research happens at Diamond and it is usually shared with the scientific community via articles in peer-reviewed journals. Diamond users publish over 1000 articles a year so lots of discoveries are made every month! We feature some research in the ‘Science Highlight’ section of our website and the most recent Highlight is all about Cystic Fibrosis and discovering more about the protein that causes this genetic disorder. The scientists behind this research investigated using nanobodies to stabilise this protein and therefore treat the disease. Have a read all about it here.

At the moment, all of Diamond’s research efforts are focused on doing everything we can to help the global effort against the outbreak of COVID-19. We are using our synchrotron and state-of-the-art technology to discover more about this virus, because understanding the biochemical and structural makeup of the virus is absolutely crucial for the development of drugs and extremely helpful for the design of vaccines. To make sure progress is made as fast as possible, we are not following the usual research pathway and waiting for the publication of papers about this research before releasing data. We are making results available and sharing information as early and as rapidly as possible to help inform the public health response and save lives. To explore the most recent discoveries about COVID-19 have a look at our dedicated website here.

The synchrotron at Diamond Light Source can be described as a cross between a giant x-ray machine and a super-powered microscope. It enables scientists to look at samples down to the atomic scale. Like many things in life, if you don’t know how something works you can't work out how to change it, or in the case of a virus, stop it from working. To find a vaccine or cure for a virus it is imperative to have as detailed a knowledge as possible of how it works at an atomic level in order to develop drugs that will stop it from infecting the body.

There are numerous benefits to using a synchrotron as the radiation source for such experiments. The high intensity of the radiation produced allows scientists to run rapid, but high quality, experiments. Together with our innovative use of automation technology, this allows a high throughput of samples with a high quality of data acquisition. In addition, the broad spectrum of radiation produced by the synchrotron and our ability to ‘tune’ this radiation for very specific purposes expands the capabilities of our crystallography beamlines.

To learn more about how we are helping the global fight against COVID-19 have a look at our dedicated website here.