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New Developments

• We developed an FPLC-coupled solution SAXS system to facilitate data collection from challenging biological samples which under normal conditions tend to be non-monodisperse. The system consists of a Akta-Ettan with low volume (2.5ml) SEC columns. It use the same flowpath as our Autosampler which allows for rapid switching between regular automated solution SAXS and online FPLC-SAXS
• A new Biologic SFM400 stopped-flow device was acquired and integrated into the beam line data acquisition system for time-resolved SAXS. This new instrument features four individually controlled syringes and has a minimum mixing time of ~1ms
• SAXSpipe, is an automated data processing and analysis pipeline written in the Python programming language. It allows on-line data reduction and analysis of high-throughput SAXS data without user input. The results are conveniently stored and displayed in an html table that can be viewed with any web browser.
• Our Autosampler, a robotic flow-cell and automated sample delivery device fully integrated the Blu-ICE software, is able to fully automatically measure up to 96 samples in a row. The system is composed of a thin-wall quartz capillary cell, a syringe needle assembly on an XYZ positioning arm for sample delivery, a water-cooled sample rack and a fluid dispenser. The dispenser is a Hamilton model 560 equipped with two microsyringes and dedicated valves for pipeting sample aliquots and sending cleaning solutions to the capillary cell.
• For high throughput analysis with have purchased DynaPro plate reader, a fully automated Dynamic Light Scattering (DSL)device. This instrument is capable of reading 96, 384 and 1536 well plates, requiring as small a volume as 4 µl. The DLS measurements can thus be used to quickly screen your samples for aggregation before the X-ray measurements.
• We have developed a new system to conduct time-resolved SAXS experiments at BL4-2. It includes a Dectris Pilatus 300K pixel array detector, a stopped-flow rapid mixer, and two IOTech PCI data acquisition boards. The detector is used to obtain x-ray scattering images of solutions in fast succession; the mixer is used to start the concerned molecular evolution event by mixing relevant solutions, and the IOTech boards are used to monitor the beam intensity while the images are acquired and as external trigger/timer for beam intensity measurement and image collection. The system is fully controlled using a dedicated tab (“TRSAXS”) in the beamline control Blu-Ice software.