NE-CAT: Crystallography Beamlines for Challenging Structural Biology Research

Publication Type:

Conference Proceedings

Source:

Award Winners and Abstracts of the 31st Annual Symposium of The Protein Society, Montreal, Canada, July 24-27, 2017., Volume 26, Issue S1, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, p.6-209 (2017)

URL:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pro.3349

Keywords:

Poster

Abstract:

<p>The NorthEastern Collaborative Access Team (NE‐CAT) focuses on the design and operation of synchrotron X‐ray beamlines for the solution of technically challenging structural biology problems and provides an important resource for the national and international research community. Currently, NE‐CAT operates two undulator beamlines: a 6 &ndash; 22 keV tunable energy beamline (24‐ID‐C) and a 12.662 keV single energy beamline (24‐ID‐E). Both beamlines are equipped with state‐of‐the‐art instrumentation. MD2 microdiffractometers installed at both beamlines provide very clean beams down to 5 microns in diameter and are capable of visualizing micron‐sized crystals. Large area pixel array detectors provide fast noiseless data collection and make possible it to resolve large unit cells. Both beamlines are equipped with custom‐built ALS‐style robotic sample automounters with dewars capable of holding 14 pucks. RAPD, our locally developed software suite RAPD provides data collection strategies, quasi‐real time data integration and scaling and simple automated MR/SAD pipeline through a 384‐core compute cluster. Users of the beamlines are supported 24/7 by experienced resident crystallographers. Funding for NE‐CAT is provided through P41 grant from the NIGMS and from the NE‐CAT member institutions.</p>