iNEXT Discovery

iNEXT Discovery is a funding stream for structural biology, which is itself funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 871037. It has a total of 23 partners (participating institutions) throughout Europe. 

Researchers from all EU countries: experts and non-experts in structural biology are welcome to apply. There are three themes of access: technology tracks, signature access and thematic calls. Diamond offers Technology Track and Signature access.

1. Technology Track

• SAXS and MX data collection: B21; I23
• Ligand screening and serial crystallography: I24; VMXi
• High resolution data collection: eBIC

2. Signature Access

• Drug discovery: Fragment screening: I04-1 (XChem)
• In-cell structural biology: X-ray imaging; CLEM/EM tomography: B24; eBIC

Signature Access is intended for users who have a specific application in mind for their research. It is offering fragment screening (X-ray or NMR-based); biophysics to obtain details in kinetics and thermodynamics of macromolecular interactions; EM/CLEM tomography experiments; X-ray imaging; in-cell NMR; serial crystallography, long-wavelength crystallography, or nano-crystallography. As with the Technology Tracks, these access possibilities do not require prior experience with the technology requested: the experiments will be supervised by skilled specialists. User research proposals can be submitted and will be peer-reviewed on a continuous basis.

MX users can also apply for standard remote access experiments through iNEXT Discovery, and the bioSAXS beamline B21 provides users with the ability to send (mail-in) samples for analysis.

For cryoEM users, single particle cryoEM and cryo-electron tomography is accessible at the Electron Bio-Imaging Centre (eBIC).

Biological X-ray imaging is also offered as a Signature Access route, and offers correlative cryo-fluorescence and cryo-soft X-ray tomography approaches for characterising intact cells at 20-40 nm resolution at B24.

A distinct advantage of iNEXT Discovery is that it provides access to state-of-the-art structural biology infrastructures across Europe. The grant ensures that access to these instruments is constantly developed and enhanced and outreach to new users is supported. The funding also contributes to developing new access routes, for example, synchrotron-based X-ray fragment screening for lead drug discovery, which has greatly benefitted from funding via iNEXT and iNEXT Discovery. These projects can only continue their success with the engagement of the user community, and so we stress the importance of submitting your research proposals directly to iNEXT Discovery.

As Diamond is part of Instruct-ERIC UK, we can also provide support for access to our MX, cryoEM and biological solution scattering (SAXS) instruments. These mirror the access we currently have available through iNEXT-Discovery, which is funded until 31^st July 2024. We advise you apply for direct access through iNEXT to take advantage of the support provided during this period. If you are taking an integrative approach to a specific problem requiring different technologies, Instruct-ERIC can help with such experiments and provides a single point of entry where multiple techniques are required.