'Super microscope' opens to researchers
19 February 2008
Welcoming its first users in January 2007, Diamond is the result of a decade-long £263 million collaboration between the Wellcome Trust and the UK Government. In phase 1, seven experimental stations or beamlines were established, three devoted to macromolecular structures. Phase 2 will provide for another 15 beamlines. Demand is already high - when active, beamlines are running 24 hours a day.
Professor Dave Stuart, Head of Structural Biology at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford, was the first to use the macromolecular structure beamline. Professor Stuart is visualising the structure of ephrin receptors - proteins found on the surface of cells that guide migrating cells to their correct location. Abnormal ephrin signalling has been implicated in several cancers.
Diamond is also home to the Trust-funded Membrane Protein Laboratory, run by Diamond Fellow Professor So Iwata. Membrane proteins are central to many biological processes but are difficult to crystallise, making structural studies problematic. The new facility is providing support for researchers working with membrane proteins, so more can be investigated in the biological beamlines.
As well as crystallography, other disciplines can also take advantage of Diamond's ultrahigh-energy X-rays. Dr Paul Schofield from the Natural History Museum, for example, is studying samples from Santa Catarina - a meteorite discovered in Brazil in 1875, which is thought to have originated early in the solar system's history. By contrast, Professor Tim Wess and his team at Cardiff University will be analysing the degradation of collagen to gelatine within ancient manuscripts, including the Dead Sea Scrolls. Such work will shed light on deterioration and how historically important documents can be preserved for future generations.
