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NECAT Beamline

The Northeastern Collaborative Access Team (NE-CAT) facility at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory is managed by Cornell University and consists of seven member institutions:

  • Columbia University
  • Cornell University
  • Harvard University
  • Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Rockefeller University
  • Yale University.

    • Primary funding for this project comes from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Additional financial support for NE-CAT comes from the member institutions.

    Status of NE-CAT Sector 24 Activities

     

    July 2009

    The month of July was again another productive month for NE- CAT users. Use of the automated sample placement robotic system on the 24-ID-C beamline is increasingly becoming more attractive to users. During the past APS run cycle, 2009-1, 23% of the users used the robot. Now during the current run cycle usage of the robot has increased to 40%. Users have found the robot to be highly reliable and increased their productivity considerably by not having to go in and out of the radiation enclosure to change samples. The staff is continuing to provide enhancements to the robot to make it even more useful and reliable. As an example, a new automated feature has been added to “wash” crystals of occluded ice while in the puck containing Dewar. Based on the success of the sample placement robot, a new robot is currently being constructed and will be installed on the 24-ID-E beamline within several months.

    Three of our staff members, Kanagalaghatta (Raj) Rajashankar, Igor Kourinov, and Jon Schuermann, attended the 2009 ACA Meeting in Toronto. They presented two posters, “Northeastern Collaborative Access Team ( NE- CAT) Beam Lines at the Advanced Photon Source” and “Microdiffraction: What Can be Done?” Jon Schuermann presented the paper “Use of Micro-focused Beamline in Solving the Crystal Structure of the Avian Thymic Hormone (ATH) in the Calcium Bound Form”. It was also gratifying to observe that three of the papers presented at the “Exciting Structures” session as well as several other posters included work performed using the NE- CAT beamlines.

    Work has now begun on installation of the bending magnet beam line at Sector 24. During this month APS installed and aligned several critical components including the collimator, mask and photon shutter. When APS completes its installation activities, NE- CAT staff can begin to install the optical components previously removed from the 8-BM beamline, as staff time is available.

     

     

     

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