ALSNews is a biweekly electronic newsletter to keep users and other interested parties informed about developments at the Advanced Light Source, a national user facility located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California. To be placed on the mailing list, send your name and complete internet address to ALSNews@lbl.gov. We welcome suggestions for topics and content.

Previous Issues are available.


ALSNews           Vol. 95           February 4, 1998

Table of Contents


    1. MACROMOLECULAR CRYSTALLOGRAPHY GOING STRONG
    2. USERS' EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ELECTION RESULTS
    3. NEW USER ADMINISTRATOR FOR ALS
    4. WHO'S IN TOWN: A SAMPLING OF ALS USERS
    5. OPERATIONS UPDATE

1. MACROMOLECULAR CRYSTALLOGRAPHY GOING STRONG
(contact: tnearnest@lbl.gov)

The Macromolecular Crystallography Facility (MCF) collected its first test diffraction patterns from protein crystals on September 18, 1997. In the first six weeks of experimental run, 45 users collected data at the Beamline 5.0.2 facility. By the end of January, the MCF had served more than 60 users from 18 different groups, demonstrating the ability to collect large quantities of data with high throughput.

Measurements so far have demonstrated several important capabilities of the MCF. The facility is well suited to collecting multiple-wavelength anomalous diffraction (MAD) data; a group from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recently determined the structure of a cholesterol-regulating protein using MAD data from the MCF. Researchers from Roche Biosciences successfully collected data from a microcrystal (<10 microns in smallest dimension) to determine the structure of an enzyme/inhibitor complex. A group from the University of California, Santa Cruz, has improved the resolution of diffraction data on ribosomes, large molecular complexes that comprise more than 50 proteins and 3 RNA molecules and form crystals with very large unit cells.

Other recent results include studies on eucaryotic transcription factors (University of California, Berkeley) and DNA binding proteins (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center). Several groups from biotechnology companies are using the MCF to solve protein structures of interest in structure-based drug design, a process that can speed new drug development to up to several times the trial-and-error rate.

Funding for MCF: Berkeley Lab; Office of Biological and Environmental Research of the U.S. Department of Energy; Amgen; Roche Biosciences; University of California, Berkeley; and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

2. USERS' EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ELECTION RESULTS
(contact: w_meyer-ilse@lbl.gov)

The votes have been counted in the election of incoming Users' Executive Committee (UEC) members. The new members are Nora Berrah (Western Michigan U.), Charles S. Fadley (U. California, Davis; and Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division), James H. Underwood (Berkeley Lab's Center for X-Ray Optics), and student/postdoc member David L. Hansen (U. Nevada, Las Vegas).

The continuing members are incoming chair Werner Meyer-Ilse (Berkeley Lab's Center for X-Ray Optics), past chair Louis J. Terminello (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Thomas N. Earnest (Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division), Adam P. Hitchcock (McMaster U.), Duane H. Jaecks (U. Nebraska, Lincoln), Stephen D. Kevan (U. Oregon), and Arthur Suits (Berkeley Lab's Chemical Sciences Division).

The UEC is responsible for conveying the concerns and interests of users to ALS management. The UEC's first meeting in 1998 will be on March 6, and the committee would greatly appreciate any input from the ALS user community for this meeting. Please direct input to Werner Meyer-Ilse (w_meyer-ilse@lbl.gov) or to any UEC member. If you prefer, there is a comment form that can be signed or used anonymously on the UEC Web page (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/uec).

3. NEW USER ADMINISTRATOR FOR ALS
(contact: alsuser@lbl.gov)

As part of its reorganization to serve users more effectively, the ALS has hired a full-time User Administrator, Ruth Pepe, effective February 2. This change consolidates into the User Office all user-related administration previously coordinated by Elizabeth Saucier and Tina Aitkens, including checking in new users and guests; planning meetings, workshops, and conferences; maintaining user-related databases; and more. Ruth brings to the position extensive experience in managing administrative offices with a broad spectrum of support services. She has been at Berkeley Lab for 4 years and at the ALS for 2.5 years.

The User Office is still available by email (alsuser@lbl.gov), phone (510-486-7745), or fax (510-486-4773).

4. WHO'S IN TOWN: A SAMPLING OF ALS USERS

To highlight the richness of our user community and help introduce recent arrivals, we offer this listing of some of the experimenters who will be collecting data during the next two weeks at the ALS.

Beamline 6.1.2: Kimberly Kurtis (UC Berkeley) will study cement and related materials. Cathie Magowan (Berkeley Lab) will continue studies of the malaria parasite. Carolyn Larabell and Sophie Lelievre (Berkeley Lab) will conduct labeling experiments.

Beamline 7.3.1.2: Baylor Triplett, Fabia Gozzo, and Ramon Ynzunza (all of Intel) will continue their PRT work.

Beamline 8.0.1: Simone Anders, Thomas Stammler, and Clemens Heske (all of Berkeley Lab), from the group led by Jo Stohr (IBM Almaden) will conduct surface and materials science experiments using the photoelectron emission microscope (PEEM).

Beamline 9.3.1: Honghong Wang (U. Nevada, Las Vegas) will perform angle-resolved electron spectroscopy in gas phase.

Beamline 12.0.1.1: On MAXIMUM, Gian Franco Lorusso (Berkeley Lab) will investigate gallium nitride films deposited by molecular beam epitaxy and metal organic chemical vapor deposition.

5. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(contact: rmmiller@lbl.gov)

** OPERATIONS UPDATE TO MOVE TO WEB **
We are considering removing the shift-by-shift Operations Update from ALSNews. The same information, plus refill frequency, feedback conditions, and more, is available on the ALS Operations Web pages (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/als_ops/ops_home.html under "Weekly Schedule"). If this change would pose a problem for you, please let us know at alsnews@lbl.gov so that we can take your needs into account.

Beam reliability for the last two weeks was 99.6% overall and 99.7% for user shifts. All outages were of short duration. Fill patterns during the upcoming user operations will depend on the experiments being run. The default storage ring fill pattern is 288 bunches. This provides a gap in the bunch train that can be used for time-resolved experiments. When time-of-flight experiments are run, a "camshaft" spike (one additional high-current bunch) will be added to bucket 321. The fill pattern will be changed to 320 bunches when neither time-resolved nor time-of-flight experiments are running to provide a small increase in beam lifetime.

Operations Summary for February 4 - February 26

Feb 04, 00:00- Feb 08, 16:00  1.9-GeV/400-mA/288- or 320-bunch user 
                              operations (see above)
Feb 08, 16:00- Feb 09, 07:15  Accelerator physics
Feb 09, 08:00-24:00           Maintenance & startup
Feb 10, 00:00-08:00           User scrubbing (Beamline 8.0)	& special 
                              operations
Feb 10, 08:00- Feb 15, 23:15  1.9-GeV/400-mA/288- or 320-bunch user 
                              operations (see above)
Feb 16, 00:00- Feb 17, 08:00  Presidents' Day Holiday
Feb 17, 08:00- Feb 18, 24:00  Maintenance & startup
Feb 19, 00:00-24:00           Accelerator physics & machine setup
Feb 20, 00:00-08:00           User scrubbing & special operations
Feb 20, 08:00- Feb 26, 16:00  1.9-GeV/60-mA/2-bunch operations