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

     

    May 2008 

     

    User Activities

     APS user operations 2008-1 concluded on April 24. Both of NE- CAT’s insertion beamlines were heavily booked throughout the entire run. With both beamlines operating at 100% reliability, all users reported very productive runs. The following pie charts summarize the use statistics.

    Run 2008-1 User Statistics for 24-ID-C

     

    Run 2008-1 User Statistics for 24-ID-E

     

    As can be seen from the pie charts, unscheduled beam time was low, 4-7%. In part, some of the unscheduled time was due to reluctance of users to schedule beam time over the Easter holiday. Beam development time has been reduced to 10% on both beamlines. Scheduling beamline development time is necessary in order to setup the beamline and insure high quality of data for users after long APS accelerator maintenance shutdowns and shorter weekly preventive maintenance days. General User time on 24-ID-C was 36%, continuing to increase to our eventual target of 50%. General User time on the newer 24-ID-E beamtime is 23%, very close to our 25% target set for the first year of operation.

     

    Move of 8-BM to 24-BM

     The move of NE- CAT’s bending magnet beamline from 8-BM to 24-BM has begun in earnest. The following photograph shows the monochromator being moved to Sector 24. At the present time all the optical and endstation components have been moved. The beamline components are now being refurbished in preparation to being installed in 24-BM.

     

     

    NE- CAT New Hires

     With both insertion device beamlines now in full operation and the bending magnet beamline soon to be brought into operation, NE- CAT is increasing its staff commensurately to support the increased number of users. Three new staff members at the PhD level, each with approximately 5 years of crystallography postdoctoral experience, have accepted positions with NE- CAT as employees of Cornell University, operator of NE- CAT. Jon Schuermann, who arrived at NE- CAT in May, received his Ph.D degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia and most recently has been a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Texas Health Science Center. David Neau received his Ph.D from Purdue and has been employed at the Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices at Louisiana State University where he has been operating a beamline. Kay Perry received her Ph.D from Northwestern and most recently has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. Both Dave and Kay are expected to arrive at NE- CAT in mid June.

     

    NE- CAT Hosted a Workshop at APS User Week 2008

     Igor Kourinov and Frank Murphy of our staff organized a very successful workshop at the APS User Week 2008 annual meeting held at APS early in May. The workshop attended by 60 participants was titled “Software for Challenging Cases in Macromolecular Crystallography”. A photograph of the organizer and the presenters is shown below. Copies of all the presenters’ Power Point viewgraphs can be found at:

    http://necat.chem.cornell.edu/workshops/UsersWeek2008/UsersWeek2008.htm.

     

     

    Speakers and Organizers of the Workshop (from left): Igor Kourinov, Andrew Leslie, Pavel Afonine, Zbigniew Dauter, James Holton, Nicholas Sauter, Qingping Xu, Wladek Minor, Zheng-Qing Fu, and Frank Murphy.

     

     

     

    © 2005 Northeastern Collaborative Access Team

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