About iNEXT Discovery

iNext-Discovery

Open for Applications

Following the success of iNEXT (infrastructure for NMR, Electron microscopy, and X-rays for Translational research), the EU has invested €10,000,000 in iNEXT-Discovery, another four-year Horizon 2020 grant. Diamond is one of 23 partners from 14 countries to offer access to European users.

The aims of iNEXT-Discovery are to build on the success of iNEXT and Instruct-ERIC, and provide access to the consortium’s advanced facilities and technologies both to the existing structural biology community and to new users. This access will allow researchers to perform high-end structural biology research with state-of-the-art equipment that is often unavailable in their home countries.

iNEXT-Discovery will build on the research enabled in iNEXT, and, in addition to underpinning drug development, the consortium aims to foster the use of structural biology in the fields of health, biotechnology and food. The consortium will work closely with Research Institute Infrastructures to bring structural biology techniques to new areas of research such as the food and biomedicine sectors.

The B24 team

The project will provide networking opportunities, particularly in the fields of health, biotechnology, and food. It will also foster collaboration among members of the consortium, and thereby strengthen the structural biology community. Diamond will participate in Joint Research Activities (JRAs) to maximise the output of fragment screening, standardise conditions for lamella preparation using cryo-focussed ion beam microscopes, and work towards the development of 3D cryo super-resolution visible light fluorescence microscopy designs as well as scripts for the automatisation of 3D referencing (fiducialisation) in super resolution correlative light x-ray microscopy (SRCLXM). 

Users will be able to obtain training in the form of targeted workshops and practical courses. At Diamond this will include workshops on cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), and training in macromolecular crystallography (MX), biological small angle x-ray scattering (bioSAXS) and x-ray imaging.

B21 bioSAXS

iNEXT-Discovery will provide a single point of entry for transnational user access to synchrotrons, nuclear magnetic resonance facilities, and electron microscopes. As before, access to all facilities will be via an open peer review system, with access granted based on a proposal’s scientific excellence and potential for enabling translational research.

Diamond will provide access to:

• Fragment screening campaigns (beamline I04-1)
• MX (serial, nanocrystallography, and long wavelength) experiments (beamlines I24, VMXi, VMXm, I23)
• BioSAXS (mail-in only) (beamline B21)
• Cryo-EM (single particle and cryo-electron tomography, with FIB milling for sample  preparation) (eBIC)
• Cryo soft x-ray tomography (cryo-SXT) experiments (beamline B24) 

Users will receive expert assistance in the operation of specialised equipment and local support will be available 24/7. Laboratories, room for sample preparation, and office space will also be accessible.