Diamond Annual Review 2020/21

128 129 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 Industrial Liaison Industrial Liaison Office Team A n annual review is a time to reflect on the activities of the previous year; to highlight the achievements and celebrate the successes of the team and our industrial partners and colleagues. This has been a year like no other, and while we mourn for those lost and remember those struggling, it is also right that we should take time to recognise some of themost positivemoments of the last year. The huge changes at Diamond Light Source, throughout the UK and across the globe have presented unexpected situations, but we are pleased to report that our colleagues and team members have risen to the challenge and successfully moved the behind-the-scenes operations of the Industrial Liaison Office (ILO) team to home offices across Oxfordshire and Berkshire.Throughmany hours of ZoomandTeams calls we have got to knowour clients better, often quite literally being welcomed into their lives and homes, meeting their families and their pets as they have come to know us better too. Our shared understanding of the pressures and goals and strong desire to collaborate to achieve results in extraordinary circumstances has highlighted this as a period in which the most human elements of scientific research have been brought to the fore. When lockdown started in mid-March 2020, and Diamond’s operations were restricted to COVID-19 research, the ILO XChemteam- Alex Dias and Ailsa Powell - had already spent a significant amount of timeworking on a variety of Diamond’s collaborative COVID-19 research projects.This continued at a pace until industrial life science services resumed in May. Their work has been featured widely in the media and has contributed to our understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and helped support the design of potential therapeutics. Of course, remote working is not a new concept for Diamond’s life science beamlines and the years of preparation and optimisation have ensured a very smoothandeasytransitiontothisnewwayofworking.Datamanagementsystems are inplacetosupportsampleshipmentsandtrackingandsecureexternalaccess, making preparations from the client side simple and straightforward. State of the art robotics and automation enable fast, accurate and reliable instrument control from labs, offices and kitchen tables all over the world. Data processing pipelines and access to our computer cluster permits data to be downloaded remotely in an easilydigestibleandusefulform,readytoprovide insight intotheprojectathand. Cryo-electron microscopy, macromolecular crystallography, fragment screening and small angle scattering services are in high demand and the industrial programme is thriving. Our mail-in data collection services continue to be very popular, as travel restrictions limit movement of personnel, and samples can be prepared and shipped directly to us for experiments. The samples can then be prepared by our expert staff, if needed, or proceed directly to data collection. Our team has many years of experience in successfully designing and delivering mail-in experiments and therefore are easily able to accommodate any additional challenges presented by the current circumstances. Although Diamond has been running a limited operational timetable, the demand from academia has in some areas reduced while university lab access was restricted, creating opportunities for greater flexibility and access for industry in some cases. In the late summer and autumn of 2020, physical sciences experiments resumed for industrial clients. These instruments tend to accommodate a wide range of different sample and technique options and, as such, require more staff time physically on site to optimise the experiments. As local and national restrictions were relaxed, the possibilities of more complex experiments were realised and the physical science teamwere able to put their long-held plans into action. Diffraction, imaging, small angle scattering and spectroscopy services are running regularly to support our clients across a wide range of sectors. A significant body of work was also undertaken across our marketing and communications portfolio to ensure that the most relevant and accessible information is available to our clients whatever their area of interest or level of expertise with synchrotron techniques. If you would like to learn more about any of these aspects or for further updates, please visit our website at www.diamond. ac.uk/industry or follow us on LinkedIn (Diamond Industrial Liaison Group) or Twitter (@DiamondILO). Throughout the pandemic, Diamond has supported our industrial clients across a wide range of techniques and we continue to do so, so rest assured that if you have a project in mind or an analytical need to discuss, please do get in touch on [email protected] andwe will do our utmost tomake it a reality. Designing complex experiments for efficiency and success is a skill at the best of times, but designing, planning and executing experiments mid-pandemic successfully takes a special blend of experience, expertise, forethought and excellentcommunication,ablydemonstratedbythe ILOteamthisyear.Wewould also like to take this opportunity to recognise our Diamond colleagues across the organisation who have been instrumental in ensuring that industrial beamtime has the minimal possible disruption as we continue to offer excellent services, safely, to our highly valued clients. Jason van Rooyen demonstrating cryo-EM experiments to Rachel Freeman. All photos taken pre-pandemic. Ailsa Powell mounting and freezing XChem crystals. Alex Dias loading pucks onto the beamline for MX data collection. Jitka Waterman handling client samples for mail in data collection.