Structural Biology BAG at ID-29 at ESRF

The Spain XFEL Hub has created a “beamtime allocation group (BAG)” proposal at XALOC beamline at ALBA synchrotron radiation source, which will be exclusive for serial synchrotron crystallography (SSX) experiments. The BAG will be run every year and is awarded 12 shifts (could be increase to 15 shifts in case there is a high demand).

The XFEL Hub team along with XALOC staff have recently implemented the SSX with viscous jets at XALOC beamtime (Botha et al, 2021; paper in preparation).

Why a BAG?

Getting your samples tested for crystal density and quality is crucial and will help you succeed in getting your XFEL proposals granted beamtime as well as in getting your samples ready for your XFEL experiments. So, we provide beamtime to conduct SSX experiments at ALBA. If you are interested in serial crystallography experiments and you have potential targets, or if you have an upcoming XFEL experiment, we offer to help you to test your samples at ALBA with using viscous jets as sample delivery method. In addition, as part of the BAG, we also offer training for sample preparation and characterization, sample delivery and data processing.

The BAG with viscous jets at ALBA can also be used to determine the crystal structure of difficult to crystallize proteins (e.g. membrane proteins). Time-resolved serial synchrotron crystallography experiments will also be offered soon at XALOC.

If you are interested to join our BAG, please contact us so that we will update you when beamtime is available to coordinate the experiments.

Travel assistance

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Proposal writing assistance

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Calls for proposals

Below are shown the call for proposals currently ongoing.

XFEL publications

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