News

Serial crystallography is a method for obtaining structural information on an atomic level of a protein, without the need for large protein crystals. Instead, small diffraction datasets are collected on many small protein crystals, which are usually easier to obtain than large ones. Serial crystallography is an ideal method for collecting diffraction data of proteins at room temperature, where the onset of radiation damage from the X-ray beam is rapid.

Congratulations to CHESS User, Professor Héctor Abruña, Cornell University, who was recently awarded the Frumkin Memorial Medal from the International Society of Electrochemistry, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field.

X-ray beam from the insertion device in Sector 4.

X-ray beam on the Sector 2B Side Bounce Diamonds, June 19, 2019.

As antibiotic resistance rises, the search for new antibiotic strategies has become imperative. In 2013, the Centers for Disease Control estimated that antibiotic resistant bacteria cause at least 2 million infections and 23,000 deaths a year in the U.S.; a recent report raised the likely mortality rate to 162,044.

There is growing interest in the biological research community to characterize and understand the impact of high pressures, i.e. 100s of MPa, on the physical properties and function of biological macromolecules, e.g. proteins, viruses, lipids etc.

The 2019 CHESS Users Meeting for the first time broke the 200 mark with 225 registered participants attending the plenary sessions and two hand-on workshops focusing on Synchrotron Essentials and Biomolecules Under Pressure. A complete meeting report will be published in the September 2019 issue of Synchrotron Radiation News.

In one of the first commissioning experiments since the upgrade of the facility, the team of Aaron Finke and collaborators measured the first crystal structure at CHESS beamline ID7B2.  The beamline provided excellent quality data and a good refined structure from a fluoroacetate dehalogenase crystal was obtained as shown below. Further commissioning is underway. Even at this early stage, ID7B2 is definitely geared up to be a world-class beamline.