Science Highlights

Biomimetic Model Studies Reveal the Role of the Ca²⁺ Ion in Photosystem II – Contacts: Ritimukta Sarangi, SSRL, Wonwoo Nam, Ewha Womans University, and Shunichi Fukuzumi, Osaka University/Japan Science and Technology Agency

Understanding the global process of photosynthesis is not only of fundamental interest in biology but is also relevant to attempts in the energy sciences to copy nature’s ability to turn light into chemical energy. With a recent study an international research team has come a step closer to understanding a key chemical reaction in the photosynthetic process – the splitting of water and the production of oxygen gas, O₂, at the oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) in photosystem II. The OEC is known to be a tetrameric manganese cluster, Mn₄CaO₅, but its exact mechanism remains a mystery. The new study sheds light on the role of the cluster’s calcium, suggesting that it critically fine-tunes the OEC’s ability to produce oxygen.  Read more...

See also: SLAC News Feature

New Method Tracks Metal-ion Movement in Periplasmic Proteins – Contacts: Kelly N. Chacón and Ninian J. Blackburn, Oregon Health & Science University

Copper is an essential element for many organisms, however, it becomes toxic to cells at high concentrations. Therefore, organisms have developed ways to tightly regulate cellular copper levels. An example of such a regulatory mechanism is the CusCBFA efflux pump in the bacterium Escherichia coli – a multi-protein system that removes toxic copper (Cu⁺) and silver (Ag⁺) ions from the space between the bacterium’s inner and outer cell membranes known as the periplasm. Researchers have recently obtained new insights into the mechanism of this system. This information may prove beneficial for the future development of antimicrobial drugs that shut down bacterial efflux pumps.  Read more...

More SSRL Science

Excerpted from October 6, 2014 SLAC News Feature

Researchers have discovered that some common messenger molecules in human cells double as hormones when bound to a protein that interacts with DNA. The finding could bring to light a class of previously unknown hormones and lead to new ways to target diseases – including cancers and a host of hormone-related disorders.

Published in the October 6 edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, these results were made possible, in part, by macromolecular crystallography experiments at SSRL.

"This finding is comparable in its importance to the discovery of how the estrogen hormone triggers activity in human cells, which was key in the development of anti-breast cancer drugs and other hormone treatments," Robert Fletterick, Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at University of California, San Francisco, and one of the principal investigators in the study, said.  Read more...

News and Announcements

Bart Johnson Receives Farrel W. Lytle Award

Excerpted from October 13, 2014 SLAC News Feature

Bart Johnson, who for the past 18 years has worked with his team to assist scientists with their synchrotron experiments and keep x-ray beam lines running at SSRL, received an annual award October 9 recognizing his efforts.

He is the latest recipient of the Farrel W. Lytle Award, which celebrates achievements in synchrotron-based science and efforts to foster collaboration and make the best use of experimental time for both staff and visiting scientists at SSRL.

Johnson runs beam line operations and Materials Science Division x-ray support at SSRL. His group is responsible for readying beam lines and equipment and engaging with scientists who conduct experiments on SSRL materials science x-ray beam lines.

"This means so much to me and to my group, too," Johnson said upon receiving the award during a ceremony at SLAC's LCLS/SSRL Annual Users’ Meeting and Workshops, which ended October 10.

"I can't help but feel it's a team award – it takes the whole team to make it work," he said. "SSRL is known specifically for its support. A lot of our users return because they know they'll get the support they're accustomed to and they'll leave with the data quality they're accustomed to. This award recognizes our contributions to that effort."   Read more...

We had a great Users' Conference the week of October 7-10. About 400 people registered for numerous workshops and activities. See SLAC News Feature

At the joint SSRL/LCLS open Users' Organization Meeting on October 9, users commented about the lack of availability and the cost of rooms at the Stanford Guest House. SSRL and LCLS will explore options to meet the needs of the user community. In the interim, please contact the Guest House directly, identify yourself as a user, and ask to be included on the 'waitlist' for rooms that become available. The Guest House sets aside a block of user rooms during Stanford events and uses the waitlist to manage and assign those rooms to users.

We discussed recent changes at SLAC and would appreciate your help to further communicate this to the user community.  SLAC Security now issues ID badges and proximity access to users on scheduled proposals who have completed training. Please ensure that all team members are listed on proposals and beam time support requests. Users with WT or B2 visas are prohibited from working at SLAC. All users from certain countries will also need to be assigned an SSRL host and be entered into the DOE database BEFORE arrival. If these conditions are not met, users may experience a delay or may not be permitted access. Scientists visiting SLAC to meet with staff outside of scheduled experiments may need to have an SSRL staff member escort them during their visits. See additional information regarding site access

Elections for the SSRL Users' Executive Committee (UEC) were held during the Annual Users' Meeting. We thank retiring UEC members:  Elyse Coletta, Serena DeBeer, Rodrigo Noriega, Juana Rudati and Alberto Salleo. And, we welcome the following new members to the SSRL UEC: 

• Kelly Chacón, Oregon Health & Science University
• Scott R. Daly, University of Iowa, Iowa City
• Vinayak V. Hassan, Applied Materials
• Debra Hausladen, Stanford University  
• Dan Lin, California Institute of Technology

We appreciate all the hard work that went into planning and arranging the Annual Users' Conference. While the event is still fresh, please take a minute to give us your feedback and suggestions for the next year's event, particularly ideas for workshop topics, organizers, or plenary session talks as well as input into dates for the next conference. Some users suggested that the Users' Conference might be moved to another time of the year, perhaps March/April to avoid conflicts with grant/review deadlines in the fall and teaching commitments early in the academic year.  Overlapping the dates of the Users' Conference with SPEAR3 operations to facilitate more hands-on beam line training during workshops would be another benefit.  We welcome your input.

CalCharge Open House at SLAC, November 18

CalCharge and SLAC will host an open house, tour, and networking poster session on November 18, 2014, 8:30 am - 5:30 pm. Hear about the importance of accelerating the development and deployment of energy storage technologies and learn about the latest research on battery safety, longer lasting Si cathodes, impacts of charge rates on battery lifetime, and nanoscale battery imaging from SLAC and the Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) at Stanford University.   See website for additional information and pre-registration

NUFO plans to become an independent 501(c)(3) organization and seeks help in selecting a new name. Enter your suggestions through their online contest.

Save the date for the next NUFO Annual Meeting planned at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on April 21-23, 2015.

Upcoming Workshops and Conferences

LCLS II Workshop, February 9-12, 2015, Menlo Park, CA

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

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

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

• Beam Time Requests
  Submit SSRL X-ray/VUV Beam Time Requests by November 20 to be considered for beam time in the scheduling period covering February-May 2015.

• Proposal Deadlines
  The next deadline for both X-ray/VUV and Macromolecular Crystallography proposals is December 1. 

  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