Diamond Annual Review 2020/21

114 115 D I A M O N D L I G H T S O U R C E A N N U A L R E V I E W 2 0 2 0 / 2 1 D I A M O N D L I G H T S O U R C E A N N U A L R E V I E W 2 0 2 0 / 2 1 In collaboration with The Franklin and SPT Labtech, a designer and manufacturer of automated instrumentation and consumables for life science applications, Diamond is developing methods for sample preparation using SPT Labtech’s chameleon, an automated system for next generation cryo- EM sample preparation. Diamond is employing its experience and user base to help develop the system, thus improving sample preparation, one of the crucial steps in structure determination by cryo-EM. Research Complex at Harwell (RCaH) The Research Complex at Harwell (RCaH) is a joint venture between Diamond and the UK research councils, now UKRI, and provides a research hub on the Harwell campus for the physical and life sciences. It currently has in excess of 180 researchers from universities across the UK working in a mix of wet and dry laboratory space supported by research grants. In addition, there is a mix of research facilities or consortia based at RCaH e.g. Diamond’s Membrane Protein laboratory (MPL), the Central Laser Facility (CLF), CCP4 and CCP-EM. This rich environment of research facility hubs welcome around 500 scientific visitors and users yearly. RCaH provides the majority of the wet laboratory space for Diamond group leaders, hosts theMPL, the UK XFEL Hub, XChemand the Harwell crystallisation facility. The latter is run as a partnership between Diamond, RCaH and the Rosalind Franklin Institute and provides state-of-the-art facilities for Harwell- based groups as well as external users. The platform is being integrated with the in situ and serial crystallography beamline VMXi at Diamond, which is in the final stages of commissioning and will provide a new way of access for users of this beamline. The last year has been extremely busy for RCaH, which kept its doors open throughout the first lockdown in the UK and enabled groups working on COVID-19 research to continue unabated. This was critical for the work started on the SARS-CoV-2 proteases by the Walsh group at Diamond which, in collaboration with the von Delft group at XChem, generated the first deluge of fragment screening data fromDiamond 1 .The groups of Naismith and Owens from The Franklin and the University of Oxford, in collaboration with Diamond groups, have successfully targeted the spike protein to generate potent nanobodies through a structure guided approach 2 . Finally, work led by Peijun Zhang at eBIC, in collaboration with Maria Harkiolaki’s group at beamline B24 and Marissa Fernandez at the CLF, has shown the power of the correlative workflows now available on the Harwell campus to visualise the SARS- CoV-2 viral assembly and egress pathway combining cryo-super resolution fluorescence, X-ray and electron microscopies 3 . References: 1. Douangamath A. et al. Crystallographic and electrophilic fragment screening of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease. Nat. Commun. 11 , 5047 (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18709-w 2. Huo J. et al. Neutralizing nanobodies bind SARS-CoV-2 spike RBD and block interaction with ACE2. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. 27 , 846–854 (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41594-020-0469-6 3. Mendonça L. et al. SARS-CoV-2 Assembly and Egress Pathway Revealed by Correlative Multi-modal Multi-scale Cryo-imaging. bioRxiv 2020.11.05.370239 (2020). DOI: 10.1101/2020.11.05.370239 Active Materials Building Construction of a new, dedicated Active Materials Building (AMB) at Diamond commenced in 2020. The new facility, which is anticipated to open to users later this year, will provide space for radioactive materials research, enabling experiments that were previously impossible in the UK. Increased knowledge of active materials is essential for the community as it wishes to understand better howmaterials behave under radiation, such as engineering materials used in nuclear power stations, as well as investigating safe storage of active materials and understanding interactions with the environment as old sites are decommissioned as part of the UK’s nuclear legacy. This new laboratory ispartofphase2oftheNationalNuclearUserFacility(NNUF)project, which is a Government investment in the UK’s nuclear future, providing state- of-the-art experimental facilities for research and development in nuclear science and technology. NNUF was established to support the Government Nuclear Industrial Strategy launched in March 2013. The University of Manchester Diamond has joined a new partnership to help researchers carry out experiments using X-ray computed tomography, a non-destructive technique to construct 3D scientific images. Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), National X-ray Computed Tomography (NXCT) is the National Research Facility for lab-based X-ray computed tomography providing 3D imaging facilities and data analysis, research knowledge and technical experience. It brings together world- leading capability in lab-based X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT) from the universities of Manchester, Southampton, Warwick, University College London and Diamond. The NXCT facility in Manchester is hosted by the Henry Royce Institute for advanced materials. NXCT’s mission is to provide access and expert support for both academia and industry, embracing both first-time users and more experienced researchers to run cutting-edge 3D and 3D time-lapse imaging experiments. Diamond’s role in the partnership is to provide expertise to bridge across the activities of the NXCT to help deliver unparalleled 3D imaging capability for the UK. Diamond will work with NXCT to help guide potential users toward the right facilities for their studies, whether that be part of the extensive catalogue of lab-based instruments that the NXCT has put together, or one of Diamond’s beamlines. NXCT users will access Diamond via the standard routes and will benefit from the support of a joint appointee between Diamond and Manchester, a post funded 50% by the EPSRC grant to specifically support NXCT activities. The University of Manchester at Harwell (UoMaH) is hosted by Diamond and provides the interface with the Harwell national facilities, enabling UoM researchers to access world-class research at Diamond and all the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) facilities at Harwell, including the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, Scientific Computing Department (SCD) and the Central Laser Facility (CLF). UoMaH is comprised of core administrative and technical teams and research fellows and their groups. The core technical team specialises in developing sample environments and equipment in support of experiments, involving high risk materials and extreme sample environments, fielded at the national facilities. In early 2021, UoMaH expanded its core team capabilities with the recruitment of a Data Analysis Manager. UoMaH plans to grow its Data Analysis Group in the coming years. The group’s purpose will be to work with National Facilities to facilitate users’data reconstruction and analysis, with the aim to reduce the time it takes for users to publish their findings. UoMaH research fellows are affiliated with different departments within the University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering and pursue research in critical themes to both the University and the facilities. Currently, UoMaH has a growing contingent of fellows based at Harwell; two fellows working on resilience and catalysis are sponsored by Diamond, one fellow working on fusion is sponsored by ISIS and one ‘extreme science’fellow, is currently in the recruitment stage and will be sponsored by US office of Scientific research. Alongside them, six further fellows and their groups are based in Manchester. The fellows strengthen the University’s link with Harwell by bringing their research, networks and new users from Industry and Faculty academics to Diamond. In December 2020, UoMaH in collaboration with Diamond, ISIS, SCD and CLF, started an Imaging webinar series, with events being run on a monthly basis until December 2021. The aim of the series is to introduce the National Facilities and the work being done by the UoMaH research fellows at Harwell to UoM, other universities, and other organisations on the Harwell site. The Faraday Institution Diamond is directly and indirectly involved in several Faraday Institution projects. As part of the characterisation project ‘Imaging Dynamic Electrochemical Interfaces’, Diamond has a joint Post-Doctoral Research Associate (PDRA) developing emerging techniques such as Bragg-coherent diffractive imaging to look at displacement and strainwithin battery electrodes as they are charged and discharged. This project also includes mathematics developments insuper-resolutiontechniquesandmachinelearningtoenhance correlative imaging. The Faraday CATMAT project is tasked with a mechanistic understanding of cathode materials and investigation of new materials. One particular area is the use of oxygen-redox materials to increase cathode energy density, but which are impacted by structural changes that occur in operation. The role of oxygen is key to understanding these materials and collaborations between the I21 beamline and Faraday Institution researchers have allowed users to successfully resolve, for the first time, that the oxidised oxygen species in the bulk of the material is molecular oxygen rather than peroxide or other species. The CATMAT project also supports a PDRA based on beamline I14 to develop 3D spectroscopic and structural imaging to aid characterisation of materials resulting from the project. More widely, recent developments in automation on beamline I13 are being used to screen electrode materials and electrode processing techniques developed in Faraday projects to provide links between performance, degradation and structure and morphology. As part of the Degradation project, high-resolution X-ray powder diffraction on beamline I11 has been used to obtain valuable information on the structural evolution of novel, high energy-density electrode materials, in situ . In particular, the Long Duration Experiment (LDE) facility has been used to perform long-term, operando cycling experiments, providing a better understanding of the degradation mechanisms leading to capacity loss and poor cycle life. I15-1, the X-ray Pair Distribution Function (XPDF) beamline, is a collaborator in the Recycling, Degradation and SOLBAT projects. Recent developments in cell design at I15-1 will facilitate fast operando XPDF studies for Faraday researchers investigating next generation cathodes, solid-state batteries and recycled battery materials. Halina Mikolajek, Senior Support Scientist and Manager of Diamond’s Crystallisation Laboratory at RCaH, pictured. Architect's impression of the new Active Materials Building at Diamond.