To-do prior your visits

Once your shift allocation has been confirmed by the peer-review panel, the User Office will contact you to provide good & bad dates so that the XChem staff can schedule your experiments accordingly.

After visit dates have been organised, you will need you to complete the XChem Registration Form so that your Local Contact has a record of your crystal system and experimental process.

For users travelling from abroad, or with particular crystallisation requirements, your local contact can arrange for crystallisation at Diamond, with appropriate notice (see below).

When on site for your experiment, your local contact will guide you through the processes, help you make the most of your time in the lab and do their utmost to ensure the experiment is as succesful as possible.

Please ensure you have completed your registration form in a timely manner (ideally 4-6 weeks ahead of your experiment) to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Please familiarise yourself with the relevant local rules for the XChem laboratory (LSRA-7).

Your local contact will conduct a laboratory induction on site to ensure you are following local rules (XChem_lab_induction)

User Administration System (UAS):

• Everyone attending site for the experiment or requiring data access will need to register in UAS and obtain a Federal ID.
• In UAS, you will have to submit an ERA and add investigators.
• Should new members join your team who need to access the data once the visit is over, they can be added by the user office.
• All visitors must complete any and all training required by UAS ahead of the visit.

User accommodation and travel:

• You (and any investigators) must be registered in UAS before you can request accommodation.
• More information regarding travel and accomodation can be found here.
• For any questions related to the booking of your accommodation or travel, please contact the user office (email: [email protected])

For visitors requiring access to imagers, or for crystallisation, you will need to request access to the Research Complex at Harwell (RCAH)

Your local contact will advise if this is necessary and send you registration details.

On your FIRST Visit:

If it is your first time in the Research Complex you will need to get your card activated. To do this please remember to bring:

• induction forms which will be sent to you directly

RCaH User Office location: G.06 in the Research Complex at Harwell (through the door and it is the office on the left before you go through the swipe door downstairs)

Open hours: Monday-Friday 9-12am, Monday-Thursdays 1-4pm Friday 1-3pm on a Friday. 

For EVERY other visit:

Your local contact can directly register your repeat visits, if necessary

Most users will set-up crystal trays at home and travel with them to Diamond. If you require crystallisation on site, please discuss with your local contact.

XChem Crystallisation:

The XChem User Form captures the details of your crystallisation, and should indicate to the local contact how suitable for an XChem expierment it will be - please be as accurate and detailed as possible, so that any issues can be dicussed well before any scheduled time.

Travelling with crystals:

If you intend to bring crystals to site please ensure that they:

• Will survive travelling
• Diffract as stated after travelling

Travel failures are one of the largest causes of experiment cancellation, so if you haven't travelled with your crystals before we recommend that you set up a tray and simulate the travel conditions as soon as possible;

• Package them up as you would for travelling
• Leave them packaged up for the length of time you expect to be travelling for
• Check that your crystals still diffract as stated once you've simulated the travel conditions.

On-site Crystallisation:

Local contacts require plently of notice to carry out crystallisation at Diamond - crystallisation protocol transfer is not always straightforward, and some troubleshooting time is always helpful. to ensure reproduction of the crystal forms that you see in your home lab.  Comple the XChem user form with as much detail as possible, and send all of the necessary reagents (protein, buffers, seeds, additives) prepared from your stocks so that they can be used straight away.

We don't have capacity to optimise crystallisation conditions or do sample preparation like buffer exchange - if these are necessary last minute steps your Local contact may be able to arrange an early visit to carry out the crystallisation yourself using the RCAH crystallisation facility.

If you are experiencing problems in acheiving a compatible crystal system we have collated some common issues on our Crystallisation Troubleshooting subpage as part of Tips, Tricks and Troubleshooting.

For crystallisation reagents:

Declare your samples according to local customs rules. We strongly recommend shipping with 15kg of dry ice to account for any customs delays.

Please fill in our shipping form which will be emailed to your local contact.

For crystallisation plates:

There are a few cases where successful shipments of crystallisation plates have been carried out using Biocaire.

Ahead of the screen it is important that you check which compounds you would like to screen against your protein target and if you need to get in contact with academic groups to access these.

Information related to the libraries available on-site is here.

Alternatively if you want to use your own compounds/library please check here.

We have prepared some handouts and documentation on the XChem pipeline which can be downloaded from the Documentation page. It is worth having a browse at those documents prior to your visit as the pipeline involves many of steps.

There is also an overview of the schedule for the Training Week page and the various parts of the Lab pipeline on the XChem Lab page.