14th International Conference on Biology and Synchrotron Radiation

Contribution List

14. 3D in situ and ex vivo characterization of tissue engineered scaffolds using synchrotron imaging technique

Ning Zhu (Canadian Light Source)

In tissue engineering, especially soft tissue engineering, three-dimensional (3D) characterization of tissue scaffolds is still challenging due to the limitations of current characterization techniques, which affects tissue scaffold design, fabrication, and longitudinal studies. Synchrotron propagation-based imaging with computed tomography (SR-PBI-CT) technique provides enhanced image...

55. A high-resolution correlative light and X-ray 3D cryo-imaging platform for cells and tissue at near-native physiological conditions.

Dr Archana Jadhav (Diamond Light Source Ltd)

High-resolution imaging of the cellular world in recent years has underpinned a revolution in high-content volume data accumulation resulting in a new understanding of cell organization and behaviour. Amongst the highlights of microscopy developments in cellular imaging has been the emergence of new correlative imaging modalities that incorporate Soft X-ray Tomography (SXT) of cryopreserved...

57. Applications of density reconstruction from solution scattering to drug discovery

Thomas Grant (University at Buffalo)

Protein-ligand interactions play a pivotal role in drug discovery and understanding biological processes. Structural biology techniques, such as X-ray crystallography, offer atomic-level insights into these interactions in a static environment. However, in solution, ligand binding can cause proteins to adopt multiple conformations that differ from those observed in crystals, making it...

15. Approaches to study biological systems at PAL-XFEL

Dr Jaehyun Park (Pohang Accelerator Laboratory)

PAL-XFEL operates user beamtime for various scientific studies related to physics, chemistry, and biology since 2017. It especially provides XFEL pulses in a very high quality for the timing jitter and stability [1, 2]. To unveil the macromolecular structures at room temperature and nearly atomic resolution, we run the serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) science program at the NCI...

23. Automation of high-throughput MX beamline at SPring-8

Dr Masaki Yamamoto (RIKEN SPring-8 Center)

Macromolecular crystallography (MX) has advanced as an essential structural analysis technique for modern life science research and drug discovery research with the development of excellent microfocus beamlines, fast readout detectors, and smart crystal handling equipment.
At the micro-focus beamline BL32XU at SPring-8, we have been developing an automatic data collection system named ZOO [1,...

59. Background Impact on 3D CXDI reconstruction of single particles.

August Wollter (Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Uppsala University)

Poster

Coherent X-ray diffractive imaging (CXDI) of single particles at X-ray free-electron lasers (XFEL) is a method to determine structure. Single particles are injected sequentially at unknown, random orientations into the intense XFEL beam and noisy diffraction patterns are measured, known as diffraction before destruction.[1] We orient these patterns using the expand, maximize and compress (EMC)...

46. BioMAX: Trends and developments at a 4th generation Macromolecular Crystallography Beamline

Ana Gonzalez (MAX IV)

The MAX IV laboratory hosts the first 4th generation storage rings. Currently MAX IV operates two Macromolecular Crystallography (MX) beamlines, BioMAX, and MicroMAX. The BioMAX beamline became operational in 2017. The beam can be focused to 20 x 5 μm² FWHM with a photon flux of about 5x10¹² photons/s. Changes of energy between 6 and 24 keV and beam defocusing up to 100...

29. Bone density distribution in the human auditory ossicles: A synchrotron-based phase-contrast microtomography study of the human middle ear

Aleksandra Ivanovic (Paul Scherrer Institut, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, Hearing Research Laboratory, ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research, University of Bern)

The human middle ear hosts the three auditory ossicles, which ensure sound transmission from the environment to the inner ear through impedance matching. Unlike for long bones, the ossification of the human hearing bones is completed shortly after birth, and only little ossicular remodeling of the bone has been observed afterwards[1-4]. Nevertheless, studies have shown that the overall...

64. Bone Regeneration in Alveolar Bone Biopsies as Retained in a Trephine Bur Using Synchrotron Radiation

Dr Yong-Gun Kim (School of Dentistry, Kyungpook National University)

Poster

Objectives: Trephine bur is the most common and effective instrument used in the biopsy of bone tissue to evaluate the results of bone regeneration procedures. Trephine bur can be mounted on the rotating instrument to obtain the regenerated tissue in a cylindrical shape. However, in the process of separating the new bone tissue from the trephine bur after tissue harvest, a physical force may...

3. Breast cancer metastasis progress based on the 3D collagen fibril orientation map

Andre Conceicao (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY)

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women worldwide [1]. In these patients, more than 90% of breast cancer-related deaths are caused not by the primary tumor, but by their metastases at distant sites. Metastasis is an extraordinarily complex process, entailing tumor cells to acquire a set of features that allow them to develop new foci of the disease. Systemic changes in the...

21. CCP4 8.1 - the next major release of the CCP4 suite

Dr Charles Ballard (UKRI-STFC (CCP4)), Dr Ville Uski (UKRI-STFC (CCP4))

Poster

Autumn 2023 will see the next major release of the CCP4 software suite. Following the, largely, successful update from python2 to python3 for the 8.0 series, 8.1 will use a python 3.9 base. Among the step changes is the move to DIALS 3.13+ {1] with an updated graphical user interface, DUI2, greater coot scripting from Paul Emsley [2], the introduction of webCoot (code name moorhen) [3], plus...

6. Characterization of Aquaporin Containing Vesicles via Electron Microscopy, Light- and Small Angle Scattering

Ms Zsófia Szathmáry (Copenhagen University)

Poster

Water is essential for all life forms on the planet, yet after thousands of years in which it has been an abundant resource, the situation is drastically changing to the point where water scarcity has become one of the greatest threats of the 21st century (1). Membrane filtration technologies are able to provide reliable filtered water qualities and a low footprint meanwhile presenting a high...

48. Coherent Hard X-ray Bio-imaging at Diamond & Diamond II.

Dr Colin Nave (Diamond Light Source)

Colin Nave, Lucia Alianelli, Darren Batey, Paul Quinn, Christoph Rau, Kawal Sawhney, Martin Walsh.
Diamond Light Source, Didcot, UK

The key advantage of using hard X-rays (>4keV) for imaging biological material is that it enables the study of thick specimens (>10 microns) at resolutions approaching 20 nm. This is especially important when examining features which extend over long distances...

41. Combined X-ray and neutron crystallography for drug design purposes

Andrey Kovalevsky (Oak Ridge National Lab)

COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, remains a global health threat even with available vaccines and therapeutic options. The viral main protease (Mpro) is indispensable for the virus replication and thus is an important target for small-molecule antivirals. Computer-assisted and structure-based drug design strategies rely on atomic scale understanding of the target biomacromolecule traditionally...

35. Complementary use of synchrotron and laboratory X-ray sources to study metal-based complexes in biological systems

Joanna Czapla-Masztafiak (Institute of Nuclear Physics PAN)

Many metal complexes are widely known for their activity in biological systems. In addition to the compounds occurring naturally in the human body, metal ions are also required for their role as pharmaceuticals as well as diagnostic agents. Due to the increasing number of cancer cases in the world, research into new anti-tumor drugs containing metal ions is particularly important. Therefore,...

50. Correlative imaging to resolve molecular structures in individual cells

Oxana Klementieva (Lund University)

Label-free chemical imaging of complex living systems is the holy grail of biochemical research. The current analysis techniques require extensive sample preparation, often due to the presence of interfering molecules such as water, making them unsuitable for the analysis of such systems. Here, we examined living tissues and small vertebrates at sub-micron resolution by optical photothermal...

28. Cryo Soft X-ray Tomography Beamline at Taiwan Photon Source

Dr Zi-Jing Lin (National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center)

Visualize the subcellar structures within cells is important to understand biological phenomena in details for biomedical research. Microscopy plays and important role to fulfill this demand. Among all the microscopy techniques, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and fluorescence microscopy are two major imaging modalities to explore the cellular structures. Fluorescence microscopy can...

4. Detecting SARS-CoV-2 in saliva by Small-angle X-ray Scattering

Andre Conceicao (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY)

Poster

SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of the COVID-19 pandemic, has speeded its spread across the globe immediately after its emergence in China in December 2019. Since then, a coordinated and tireless race for developing simple, less invasive, cheap, highly accurate, and able to be applied in large-scale tests to supply the huge demand of governments to detect infected persons and plan effective...

2. Differentiating the solution structures and dimer-dimer interfacial dynamics of transthyretin stabilized by tolcapone and tafamidis

Prof. U-Ser Jeng

Oral

Human transthyretin (TTR) is a homotetrameric protein that transports thyroxine (T4) and retinol-binding protein (RBP) in the serum and cerebrospinal fluid. Dissociation of the tetramer form of TTR is believed to result in monomer aggregation into the several identified fatal TTR amyloidosis forms. In the past, several synthesized small molecules were developed to bind and stabilize the...

10. Extending the DIALS toolkit

David Waterman (UKRI STFC)

Poster

DIALS is a data processing package for single crystal diffraction. It was written initially to serve the needs of large scale X-ray synchrotron and XFEL facilities and developed as an open source, collaborative project to provide maximum benefit to the community. Over the past decade, DIALS has developed into a mature package and provides the backbone for autoprocessing pipelines run at...

24. Fixed target system for biological research at PAL-XFEL

Sehan Park (PAL-XFEL)

Poster

Serial Femtosecond Crystallography (SFX) offers several advantages in protein structure analysis, such as the ability to conduct experiments at room temperature with minimized radiation damage. However, SFX experiments using LCP (Lipidic Cubic Phase) suffer from stability issues in chemical reaction with carrier matrix and/or sample flow control. Recently, to overcome these problems, the fixed...

45. Generating predicted models with CCP4

Ville Uski (Science and Technology Facilities Council)

Poster

We discuss recent work on making use of deep-learning-based protein structure prediction programs with the CCP4 Software Suite. These programs include AlphaFold2 [1] and OpenFold [2], which use multiple-sequence alignments as input, and ESM-Fold [3], which uses embeddings from protein Language Models. We have developed an adapter script that allows running these programs via a unified...

40. Harnessing low background data collection at the nano-focus beamline, VMXm, for structure determination of membrane proteins from microcrystals.

Dr Adam Crawshaw (Diamond Light Source)

Poster

Structure solution of membrane bound proteins remains a significant challenge. These targets, such as potentially druggable GPCRs, represent ~3% of the X-ray diffraction structures in the PDB. Crystallisation often requires the use of lipid cubic phase (LCP) to maintain the hydrophobic environment, protein stability and promote crystallisation. Membrane protein LCP crystals are generally...

63. Importance of Validation in SAXS/SANS

Prof. Jill Trewhella (The University of Sydney)

The biomolecular SAS community of users has grown sharply since the 1990’s with increased ease of access and innovation in instrumentation and analysis tools. With this growth, SAS methods have become attractive to main-stream structural biologists who traditionally have relied almost exclusively on high-resolution, data-rich techniques. Key to this development have been the modelling tools...

42. In-situ analysis of the protein adsorption on solid-supported lipid layers

Jaqueline Savelkouls (Technische Universität Dortmund)

Poster

Biochemical processes at lipid membranes are essential for all living organisms and can be influenced by the interaction of proteins with lipid interfaces [1-2]. Hence, the effects of protein adsorption at such surfaces are important for understanding the organisms’ biochemistry, for current issues in the pharmaceutical industry and for bio- and nanotechnology [3-5].
We studied the adsorption...

65. Insights into the structure and function of membrane proteins from anomalous scattering of light atoms

Ramona Duman (Diamond Light Source, UK)

Oral

More than a third of all proteins contain metal ions [1] with crucial roles in stabilizing structure or enabling a specific function. Identifying metal ion-binding sites is important for understanding the biological functions of proteins and further helps in designing potent therapeutics.

Membrane proteins have important roles to play in shuttling a variety of ligands and ions across...

34. Investigating depth-wise cell properties in articular cartilage via synchrotron phase-contrast microtomography

Mr Edvin Tobias Bokvist Wrammerfors (Lund University)

Oral

Introduction: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a debilitating joint disease affecting the middle-aged and elderly population, characterized by the progressive degeneration of cartilage and other joint tissues (1). Since the mechanisms are not fully understood, there is a need for non-destructive, high-resolution methods to identify structural changes in different disease stages. Phase-contrast...

11. Investigating the Monomer-Dimer alterations of SARS-CoV-2 3-CL Protease

Mr MOHIT BHARDWAJ (Kusuma School of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi)

Poster

Recently the world has been ravaged by the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). SARS-CoV-2 belongs to the Coronaviridae family, Coronaviruses (CoVs) are positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses with a 5′ Cap and a 3′ poly-A tail that may infect both human beings and animals. SARS-CoV-2 maturation, replication, and invasion all rely on the viral...

30. Investigating the structural and functional implications of PKM2 mutations in cancer

Saurabh Upadhyay (IIT Delhi)

Oral

The PKM2 protein is a key player in cancer metabolism acting as a central node in tumor growth and progression. We aimed to study the effect of cancer patient-derived mutations in the PKM2 protein on its structural and functional properties. We deciphered the effect of the mutations on the overall structure of the protein using X-ray crystallography, which revealed subtle structural...

32. Investigating the structural and functional implications of PKM2 mutations in cancer

Saurabh Upadhyay (IIT Delhi)

Poster

The PKM2 protein is a key player in cancer metabolism acting as a central node in tumor growth and progression. We aimed to study the effect of cancer patient-derived mutations in the PKM2 protein on its structural and functional properties. We deciphered the effect of the mutations on the overall structure of the protein using X-ray crystallography, which revealed subtle structural...

5. Macromolecular crystallography in situ data collection strategies at a second-generation synchrotron

Leonard Chavas (Nagoya University)

Oral

In situ macromolecular crystallography is a technique used in structural biology to determine the three-dimensional structure of biomolecules without the need for subsequent handling or modification of the crystals that are operated in their native environment. Exposing macromolecular objects to strong X-ray radiation causes significant damage that has a noticeable impact on the quality and...

8. Medical application by using wax physisorption kinetics and Fourier transform infrared spectral imaging

Dr Yao-Chang Lee (National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center)

Wax physisorption kinetics with FTIR (WPK-FTIR) imaging provides a glycol-histopathological imaging analysis for differentiating the abnormal glycosylation within medical tissue sections and cell lines, utilizing n-alkanes (n-CnH2n+2) with varied carbon number (CN) from 20 to 34 and beeswax as wax adsorbents for targeting similar longitudinal length of glycans of glycoconjugates anchoring in...

36. Micro- and nanostructure specific X-ray tomography to study collagen regeneration during tendon healing

Isabella Silva Barreto (Lund University, Sweden)

Introduction: The recovery of the collagen structure following Achilles tendon rupture is poor, resulting in high risk for re-ruptures (1). The loading environment affects the mechanical properties of healing tendons but knowledge regarding how it affects regeneration of the tendon structure is still limited. This study characterizes the effect of reduced in vivo loading on the regenerating 3D...

51. MicroMAX: a beamline for dynamic macromolecular crystallography at the MAX IV Laboratory

Oskar Aurelius (MAX IV Laboratory)

The second macromolecular crystallography (MX) beamline at the MAX IV Laboratory, MicroMAX, collected its first protein dataset at the end of 2022. With the BioMAX beamline having established a robust framework for high-throughput crystallography, MicroMAX will aim to complement these abilities in the form of supporting experiments needing a higher flux density, more custom sample environments...

47. Moorhen: a web molecular graphics program

Dr Filomeno Sanchez (University of York)

Oral

Here we present Moorhen, a next-generation client-side web-based application for the visualisation and manipulation of molecules in structure determination and analysis.
Recent developments in the field of cloud-based computing have enabled a rapid increase in the range of crystallographic tools available on the web, which crystallographers can use without the need for installing software...

38. Multimodal and multiresolution X-ray studies of nanoparticle pathways in plants.

Emil Visby Østergaard (Technical university of Denmark)

Poster

Mineral nutrients are taken up by plants through their root network, therefore if additional nutrient is required, this is today applied to the soil in vast quantities. From this, the crops take up only a minor fraction [1]. We are researching the possibility to apply nutrients through foliar fertilization, developing nanoparticles (NPs) as vessels to deliver the fertilizer through the leaf...

33. Multimodal characterization of heterotopic ossification during Achilles tendon healing in a rat animal model

Mr Kunal Sharma (Lund University, Sweden)

Introduction: Clinical case studies of healing Achilles’ tendons identified localized mineral depositions radiographically, described as ‘heterotopic ossifications’ (HO), or ‘bone-like’ tissue. The presence of HO has been associated with increased risk of re-ruptures and pain [1]. The origin of HO in healing tendons is not yet fully understood. This study characterizes elementally and...

52. MX3: A new macromolecular crystallography beamline at the Australian Synchrotron

Dr Daniel Eriksson (Australian Synchrotron - ANSTO)

The High-Performance Macromolecular Crystallography beamline (MX3) will be capable of providing high-flux, microfocus X-rays for small and weakly diffracting protein crystals. The beamline has an energy range from 10-15 keV with beam sizes at sample from 2x2 to 40x40 microns with flux up to 1.3e14 ph/s (at 13 keV). The beamline will provide three modes of data collection: goniometer (standard...

22. New developments in CCP4 to tackle the phase problem in Macromolecular Crystallography

Ronan Keegan (UKRI-STFC)

Poster

The success of Deepmind in CASP14 has resulted in a new era in structural biology where highly accurate predictions for macromolecular structures can be generated computationally in just a few minutes or less. This has presented new challenges and opportunities to the experimental structural biology community. With the availability of accurate predictions, solving the phase problem in...

61. New Kid on the Beam: adding asymmetrical-flow field-flow fractionation (Af4) to tackle polydispersity

Melissa Graewert (EMBL Hamburg)

Oral

Over the past years, it has been clearly demonstrated that incorporating size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) directly before the collection of SAXS data is very
beneficial as it ensures sample homogeneity. However, not all biological systems can be subjected to SEC without any drawback. Sample dilution, risk of sample
disruption through interaction with the column's stationary phase, and...

49. PReSTO: Structural Biology Software in a High Performance Compute Environment

Aaron Finke

Poster

PReSTO is a software stack for integrated structural biology adapted to high performance computing resources at the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) and the local MAX IV compute cluster. Our aim is to support integrative structural biologists evaluate their data from macromolecular X-ray crystallography (MX), X-ray free electron lasers (XFEL), nuclear magnetic resonance...

27. Protein Characterization, Crystallization and Structure Determination at the Lund Protein Production Platform

Dr Maria Gourdon (LP3, Lund University)

Poster

Lund Protein Production Platform (LP3, www.lu.se/lp3) is a cross-faculty expert center and user facility of Lund University (LU). As such, we provide services and make equipment available in the areas of recombinant protein production, crystallization, biophysical characterization, and structure determination. We also act as the LU node of a new national distributed research infrastructure for...

26. Protein Production Sweden (PPS)

Dr Maria Gourdon (LP3, Lund University)

Poster

Protein Production Sweden (PPS; www.gu.se/pps) is a new national research infrastructure established in 2022 and focused on the production and purification of protein reagents for Swedish researchers, both from academia and commercial entities. Well-established protein production platforms from five universities (the University of Gothenburg (host), Karolinska Institutet, KTH Royal Institute...

7. Role of BioSAXS in the fight against coronavirus: from viral protein characterization to vaccine development.

Clement Blanchet (EMBL Hamburg)

Biological small angle scattering is a key method in biophysics and structural biology. It provides information on the size, shape, flexibility, and oligomeric composition of biological macromolecules. SAXS measure the sample directly in solution, in a quasi-native environment and is complementary to high resolution methods such as X-ray crystallography and Cryo-EM. In particular, structural...

58. Routine room temperature protein structure determination in situ at Diamond beamline VMXi: current status and recent developments

Mike Hough (Diamond Light Source)

Oral

The need for rapid turnaround times from the appearance of protein crystals to the determination of high quality crystal structures has driven many aspects of automation. Moreover, it is increasingly recognised that room temperature structures allow access to protein dynamics, may reveal ligand binding modes not apparent at cryogenic temperatures and allow for time resolved structures to be...

56. Sample identification using RFID in macromolecular crystallography beamlines at the Photon Factory

Prof. Masahiko Hiraki (Mechanical Engineering Center, KEK)

Poster

At the Photon Factory macromolecular crystallography beamlines, sample exchange system PAM and PAM-HC have been installed and operated by the Structural Biology Research Centre. Most of the samples are brought in by Uni-puck, and information of the samples in the Uni-puck is described in the sample list file corresponding to each Uni-puck. The Uni-puck is automatically recognized by the sample...

20. SAR analysis of S1P5 receptor structure in complex with a selective inverse agonist

Alexey Mishin (Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology)

Oral

The sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) is a bioactive lysophospholipid that acts through five different subtypes of G protein coupled S1P receptors (S1PRs) - S1P1-5. S1P5 affects many cellular processes such as division, migration and survival. To date, several drugs (such as fingolimod [1], siponimod [2] and ozanimod [3]) have been developed for the treatment of multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease...

44. SARS-CoV-2 Methyltransferase ligand screening and peptide inhibitors

Dr Janina Sprenger (Deutsches Elektronen Synchroton)

Non-structural protein 10 (nsp10) and nsp16 are part of the SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA replication complex. Nsp16 exhibits methyltransferase activity needed for mRNA capping and is active in heterodimeric complexes with the enzymatic inert nsp10. The inactivation of this complex interferes severely with viral replication, making it a promising drug target against COVID-19. As only limited...

18. Soft X-ray beamlines at Institute of Advanced Science Facility and its application on Biology

Dongniu Wang (Institute of Advanced Science Facility)

The fourth-generation synchrotron radiation light source has the outstanding advantages such as low divergence and high brightness,facilitating high spatial and energy resolution X-ray spectroscopy studies and the detection of “light-in-light-out” photon-hungry spectroscopy. The proposed high-resolution soft X-ray spectroscopy beamlines of Shenzhen Industrial Light Source (SILF) will set up...

1. Solvation Shell Structure of Proteins probed by Small- and Wide-Angle X-Ray Scattering

Orion Shih (NSRRC)

Oral

Small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SWAXS) data provides information about the shape and size of bio-macromolecules in solution. The newly developed BioSAXS endstation at the beamline 13A of the Taiwan Photon Source features an in-vacuum SWAXS detecting system comprising two area detectors (Eiger X 9M/1M) and an online size-exclusion chromatography system incorporated with several optical...

54. Stabilization of mRNA lipid nanoparticles

Dr Sibel Uzuncayir (Lund University)

Poster

The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in the release of the new class of vaccine products- the mRNA vaccines. These consist of synthetic mRNA strands packed in lipid nano particle (LNP) that deliver the mRNA to the cells, initiate antigen production and lastly result in immune protection. The function of mRNA in vivo depends on effective, safe and stable delivery to allow cellular uptake and RNA...

62. Structural insight into the synergistic activities of NADase and SLO in the pathogenesis of Group A Streptococcus infection

Prof. Shu-Ying Wang (Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan)

Poster

Group A Streptococcus (GAS) is a strict human pathogen renowned for its highly aggressive destruction of host tissues that can lead to life-threatening diseases including streptococcal toxic shock syndrome and necrotizing fasciitis. GAS possesses a unique pathogenic trait to enhance its virulence by utilizing the synergism of two secreted toxins, Streptolysin O (SLO) and NAD+-glycohydrolase...

12. Structure Determination Online with CCP4 Cloud

Dr Eugene Krissinel (CCP4)

CCP4 Cloud is a front-end for the CCP4 Software Suite, which represents a new approach to developing, organising and maintaining crystallographic projects and running CCP4 programs. It exploits the paradigm of remote computing, when all projects and data are kept online and tasks are executed on remote servers. CCP4 Cloud is designed for deployment at scientific centres and data-producing...

53. The FragMAX facility for structure-based drug discovery at MAX IV Laboratory

Tobias Krojer (BioMAX)

The FragMAX facility supports structure-based drug and chemical tool compound discovery at MAX IV Laboratory. It was designed as a platform for crystal-based fragment screening, but the underlying workflows are applicable to all medium- to large-scale protein-ligand studies. The platform is comprised of three primary elements: (i) a medium-throughput crystal preparation facility, (ii)...

37. The High Throughput Macromolecular Crystallography beamline P11 at PETRA III

Guillaume Pompidor (DESY)

Oral

The P11 beamline at PETRA III (DESY, Hamburg) is a versatile instrument dedicated to High Throughput Macromolecular Crystallography [1], which provides variable focus sizes (from 200 x 200 to 5 x 10 μm2) in an energy range from 6 to 28 keV with a maximum of 1013 ph/s.
Since 2021, an EIGER2 X 16M detector is permanently installed at the beamline, which significantly reduced the data...

13. The human middle ear in motion: visualization and movement quantification using dynamic synchrotron-based X-ray microtomography

Dr Margaux Schmeltz (PSI)

Characterizing the movement of the middle ear ossicles during sound transmission is of prime interest in clinical research. However, the small size, the location within the temporal bone, and the tiny movements of the three ossicles of the human middle ear make this type of measurements extremely challenging.
In this work, we use dynamic synchrotron-based X-ray phase-contrast...

16. Three-dimensional cell imaging by cryo-soft X-ray tomography at Taiwan Photon Source

Dr Lee-Jene Lai (National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center)

Cryo-soft X-ray tomography (SXT) with full-field transmission microscopy is a new growing synchrotron-based technique, which is developed to image 3D complete frozen cells at Taiwan Photon Source TPS 24A beamline in National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC)[1]. To avoid the radiation damage, bio-samples have to be frozen in liquid ethane condition and transferred to be imaged by...

39. Time-resolved phase contrast µCT measurements of nanoparticle transport in living plants.

Francesca Siracusa (DTU)

The transition to green agriculture faces several challenges. One major issue is the inefficient use of soil-based, conventional fertilizers. A solution to increase both the efficiency and flexibility of fertilization is to bypass the whole soil system and develop the concept of foliar fertilization. With the development of nanotechnology, new avenues have opened with the potential to truly...

60. TOLL receptor Serial Femtosecond Crystallography structure

Dr Connie Darmanin (La Trobe University)

Understanding the dynamics of biological processes provides new insight into treating disease. X-ray crystallography reveals what proteins look like at the atomic scale and has been key for developing new therapeutics. TOLL-like receptors are activated by pathogens, which results in a string of protein interactions within the cell producing an immune response. Two responses can occur,...

25. Towards building and disseminating comprehensive publication guidelines for biomolecular small-angle scattering in an e-learning format

Wojciech Potrzebowski (Data Managment and Software Centre, European Spallation Source, ERIC)

Biological Small Angle Scattering is a technique that is widely used to characterize samples of biomolecules in solution. Despite thousands of data sets generated every year, only a fraction of them is published, and even a smaller fraction is presented in a way that results can be reproduced, and unbiased conclusions can be drawn. A reporting guideline, specifically targeted for structural...

17. Visualizing protonation states in serine hydroxymethyltransferase with neutron crystallography

Victoria, N. Drago (Neutron Scattering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

Poster

Serine hydroxymethyltransferase (SHMT) is a pyridoxal-5’-phosphate (PLP) dependent enzyme that catalyzes the tetrahydrofolate (THF)-dependent cleavage of L-Ser to form glycine and 5,10-methylene-THF. This reaction is significant for its role in the biosynthesis of thymidine and purines, as well as the methyl group of methionine by providing single carbon units to one-carbon metabolism. Human...

31. WaveGate X-Ray Chopper for Synchrotron-Based Time-Resolved Serial Crystallography using the Hadamard Transform

Peter Gaal (TXproducts UG)

We present a new method for tailoring the time-structure of hard X-ray synchrotron beams for time-resolved serial crystallography. The central element of this method is a variable solid-state X-ray chopper called the WaveGate. It can span arbitrary temporal gates with durations of 100 ns to milliseconds and longer. In this project we employ the WaveGate to generate complex sequences of x-ray...

19. X-ray scattering methods to image bone healing around bio-resorbable implants

Irene Rodriguez Fernandez (Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen PSI, 5232, Switzerland)

Oral

In recent years, bio-resorbable magnesium implants have gained interest as treatment options for bone fractures. Their advantages include their mechanical properties, their excellent immunological response during healing, and the reduced need for a second intervention to remove the implant. In this study, we wanted to understand the behavior of bone around Mg biodegradable implants and the...