Science Highlight

Discovery of the Fundamental Mechanism of Action of Resveratrol – Contacts: Mathew Sajish and Paul Schimmel, The Scripps Research Institute

Famous for its presence in red wine, the molecule resveratrol is present in many foods, including grapes, blueberries, and peanuts. Studies showing that resveratrol can elicit health benefits, including longevity in animals, have generated much interest in its effects on humans and its mechanisms of action. These are partly unknown but, recently, scientists found resveratrol can affect a stress response pathway associated with longevity.  Read more...

More SSRL-related Research and Training Opportunities

Anne Sakdinawat’s Team Will Work to Develop New Tools for Experiments at Synchrotrons, X-ray Lasers

Excerpted from May 8, 2015 SLAC Today

Anne Sakdinawat, an Associate Staff Scientist at SSRL, has been recognized with a prestigious DOE Early Career Research Program grant to advance her work in creating and using next-generation focusing and imaging devices for x-ray experiments at SLAC and other research sites.

Sakdinawat joined SSRL in 2012 and is one of 44 researchers this year from a nationwide pool of about 620 applicants who will receive a DOE Early Career grant. The grant program, in its sixth year, supports full-time scientists at DOE national laboratories and researchers at U.S. universities who received their doctoral degrees within the past 10 years.

The five-year grants provide a minimum of $500,000 per year for each DOE lab scientist and $150,000 per year for each university researcher to cover salary and research expenses. Awardees are selected based on a peer review by outside scientific experts.

“This prestigious award is a clear recognition of Anne's research in novel x-ray optics and will allow her to expand her research effort and have greater scientific impact,” said SLAC Director Chi-Chang Kao. “We look forward to seeing a new wave of innovations from Anne.”  Read more...

SSRL Hosts 17th Annual RapiData Course in Macromolecular X-ray Diffraction

Excerpted from May 18, 2015 SLAC Today Article

SSRL hosted this year’s 17th Annual RapiData course in macromolecular x-ray diffraction, a leading technique to determine the 3-D structures of biomolecules that play fundamental roles in life processes and many diseases. For the past 16 years the course had been held at NSLS, which shut down last September in anticipation of Brookhaven's new x-ray facility, NSLS-II, coming online.

RapiData 2015, held May 3-8, attracted 41 participants from the U.S., Latin America, Europe and Hong Kong. Most of them were early-career scientists who want to apply x-ray diffraction to their research work.

“We were very happy to host the event,” said Aina Cohen, co-head of SSRL’s Structural Molecular Biology (SMB) division. “It’s our mission to train the next generation of researchers. In addition, we hope that some of the course participants will join SSRL’s user community in the future.”

After three days of lectures by internationally renowned experts in x-ray diffraction and related fields, including Brookhaven’s Robert Sweet – the scientist who pioneered RapiData at NSLS, attendees engaged in hands-on tutorials at SSRL experimental stations.  Read more...

Upcoming Workshops and Conferences

12^th International Conference on Synchrotron Radiation Instrumentation, July 6-10, 2015, New York City, NY

The National Synchrotron Light Source ll (NSLS-ll) at Brookhaven National Laboratory is pleased to invite you to register to attend the 12th International Conference on Synchrotron Radiation Instrumentation (SRI 2015) at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square, New York City, July 6-10, 2015. Register at SRI website

2015 X-ray Science Gordon Research Conference, July 26-31, 2015, Easton, MA

The 2015 X-ray Science Gordon Conference, X-ray Science Utilizing the Dramatic Increases in Peak and Average Brightness from Current/Planned Next Generation Accelerator Based X-ray Sources, will be held July 26-31 at Stonehill College in Easton, MA. The deadline to apply is June 28.

These conferences have historically played an important role in pushing the boundaries of x-ray science and informing the community of the exciting cutting edge opportunities that accelerator based light sources enable.  Review the program and registration material online.

16^th International Conference on X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS16), August 23-28, 2015, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Karlsruhe, Germany
        Conference website

Joint SSRL/LCLS Annual Users' Conference, October 7-9, 2015

Please Stay tuned, registration for our Annual Users' Conference will open soon!

2015 LCLS/SSRL Annual Users' Conference Organizing Committee: Cathy Knotts, SSRL/LCLS User Research Administration Manager, Petra Fromme, LCLS Users' Executive Committee Vice Chair, Eddie Snell, SSRL Users' Executive Committee Vice Chair, Georgi Dakovski , LCLS Scientist, Tim Maxwell, LCLS Scientist, Hendrik Ohldag, SSRL Scientist

12^th International Conference on Biology and Synchrotron Radiation (BSR) is being planned to take place in Menlo Park, CA on August 22-24, 2016. Save the Date.

User Research Administration

Proposal Deadlines

• The next deadline for submitting standard X-ray/VUV proposals is June 1 and July 1 for Macromolecular Crystallography proposals.

Submit proposals and beam time requests through the user portal.

The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) is a third-generation light source producing extremely bright x-rays for basic and applied research.  SSRL attracts and supports scientists from around the world who use its state-of-the-art capabilities to make discoveries that benefit society. SSRL, a U.S. DOE Office of Science national user facility, is a Directorate of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.  The SSRL Structural Molecular Biology Program is supported by the DOE Office of Biological and Environmental Research, and by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences. For more information about SSRL science, operations and schedules, visit http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu.

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Questions? Comments? Contact Lisa Dunn