Synchrotron Access

Beamtime access during the APS Dark Period

Vanderbilt crystallographers have access to macromolecular beamlines through membership in the Life Sciences Collaborative Access Team (LS-CAT) at the Advanced Photon Source of Argonne National Laboratory.

LS-CAT provides a significant amount of beamtime throughout the Dark Period to Vanderbilt researchers via LS-CAT Block Allocation Group proposals to NSLS-II at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Diamond Light Source in the UK, and ESRF in Grenoble, France.

For Dark Period Beamtime, go to https://ls-cat.org/darkperiodtime.html. The website is continually updated. Check the website each time you want to request time for the most current instructions and information.

Please read the following additional instructions from LS-CAT:

The “arrive to” LS-CAT deadlines for your dewars for each upcoming synchrotron visit are on our home page. There could be a possibility of dewars getting too full to hold all of your crystals for one trip if you have a large number of samples, so please indicate in some way in the Sample Spreadsheet any higher priority samples (some people use background colors in the table, with a legend of what they mean at the top). Let us know other things you wish to be considered during data collection as well.

Please include a return FedEx label inside your shipping container along with the Dewar Form.

In addition, please send the following information for each of your samples (ESRF is very particular):

Protein/macromolecule name, long/descriptive form

Acronym you would like to use

Species of Origin (e.g., Human, Rat, specific bacterium, etc.)

Expression cells (e.g., E. coli, Insect, CHO cells, etc.) – OR – state if they are chemically synthesized

If you have any questions, please let us know,

Pamela J Focia <focia@northwestern.edu>

Joseph Brunzelle <j-brunzelle@northwestern.edu>