Message from the Director
SSRL has not been operating during the last several months. An electrical incident occurred in another building on the SLAC site during our winter break that resulted in injury to a staff member involved. A site-wide safety stand down ensued to review and improve operating procedures across the site - with particular emphasis on hazardous energy (CoHE) protocols and lock-out-tag-out (LOTO) restrictions. These restrictions applied to restarting the injector and SPEAR3 for SSRL operations. The situation was further compounded by a SPEAR3 injector transformer failure on January 11 during an atmospheric river and bomb cyclone weather event in California.
New procedures had to be approved by the Department of Energy before any CoHE or LOTO work could be done. Initial approval to work on the transformer has been granted, but there are still uncertainties that may yet affect the timing of the restart. The current estimate for restarting SSRL operations is the end of May. We realize that this unexpected outage has had significant impact on our user community, and we sincerely appreciate your patience. As we begin to plan the June through August beam line schedules, please reach out to the user office (ssrl-user-office@slac.stanford.edu) to alert us if you have urgent needs such as data needed for funding deadlines or students who need to complete their thesis for graduation.
On a happier note, we look forward to welcoming you to SSRL on April 20 to celebrate 50 years of transformative science, and to look ahead to an exciting future full of new discoveries. Join us for a full day of talks and panel discussions looking at the past, present and future of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL). This is a unique opportunity to acknowledge many individuals who have made SSRL such a vital and impactful facility, and to renew the partnerships among SSRL users and staff that fuel our success. This event is open to the public. Advanced registration is required for in-person attendance – please visit the registration page – and for information on virtual attendance to a live-streamed webinar. The symposium will take place in the Kavli Auditorium with additional capacity in the Redwood Rooms.
– Paul McIntyre
SSRL Science Highlight
Crystallography Confirms De Novo Protein Binding Modes and Hotspots – Contacts: Chris Garcia (Stanford University) and David Baker (University of Washington)
Designing customized proteins that have particular biological functions is of great interest to scientists working to develop disease therapies and diagnostics. While the functionality of proteins often involves physical shapes fitting together, the chemical qualities of the molecular surfaces make engineering these interactions complicated. The field of protein design has benefitted from a computational software called Rosetta that not only helps design custom proteins but also enables new discoveries in the basic science of protein interactions. A team of researchers from many institutions used crystallography to test the accuracy of novel proteins selected by the Rosetta protein design software. Read more...
More SSRL-Related Science
Team Designs Molecule to Disrupt SARS-CoV-2 Infection
Excerpt from March 28, 2023 Article in Medical Xpress
A team of scientists led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory designed a molecule that disrupts the infection mechanism of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and could be used to develop new treatments for COVID-19 and other viral diseases.
The research, detailed in Nature Communications, turned a previously identified noncovalent inhibitor of PLpro into a covalent one with higher potency. Using mammalian cells, the team showed that the inhibitor molecule limits replication of the original SARS-CoV-2 virus strain as well as the Delta and Omicron variants.
The protein was expressed and purified using the capabilities of the Center for Structural Molecular Biology at the Spallation Neutron Source, or SNS, at ORNL. The bright x-rays generated by the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, or SSRL, at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory were used to map the molecule and examine the binding process at an atomic level, validating the simulations. The SNS and SSRL are DOE Office of Science user facilities. Read Xpress and SLAC News articles.
Citation: B. C. Sanders et al., Nature Communications, 28 March 2023 (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37254-w)
Scientists Find Human Antibodies that can Block Multiple Coronaviruses Including SARS-CoV-2
Excerpt from March 1, 2023 Scripps News & Views Article
A team of scientists from Scripps Research and the University of North Carolina (UNC) has found antibodies in the blood of certain COVID-19 donors that can block infection from a broad set of coronaviruses—specifically, in people who have recovered from the virus and were then vaccinated. They found this includes not only the COVID-19-causing SARS-CoV-2, but also SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV.
The scientists’ detailed study of the antibodies and their virus binding sites, reported in Immunity, could lead to the development of a broad coronavirus vaccine and related antibody therapeutics. Both could be used against future coronavirus pandemics as well as any future variants of SARS-CoV-2. Read more...
Citation: P. Zhou et al., Immunity, 14 March 2023 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2023.02.005)
