PROTEIN CRYSTALLOGRAPHY
Data Collection Service
Introduction
The commercial PX data collection service is available through The Daresbury Analytical Research & Technology Service (DARTS).
For further information visit their website at www.darts.ac.uk
or e-mail them at darts@dl.ac.uk.
A protein crystallography data-collection
service is also available to academic users. Approved users can send samples
to the SRS or leave samples in the SBL after a prior visit. Data would
then be collected from these samples by Daresbury staff.
Eligibility
All users who obtain beamtime by the normal application procedure will be eligible to use the service. This information is part of the application.
Mode of Operation
Users booking a sample for the service mode would inspect their sample as far as practicable at the home institute, in order to verify that it conforms to their expectations. Duplicate samples should normally be prepared to cover for ‘breakage’. Pre-frozen or capillary mounted samples will be handled.
A PX Service Data
Sheet should be completed giving all
the known information about the sample.
Word version, pdf version, html version
Service mode includes data collection and preliminary reduction, and will operate on a ‘pipeline’ model: Samples that are despatched will be put in a queue for the target station(s), and will be handled in that order. Contact with the user via e-mail will be maintained. Where possible, notification will be issued that ‘the experiment is about to be conducted’, as so on as the queue is moving. The user would have the option of contacting the operator with modified requirements, perhaps during the experiment after inspecting a few test images. Any data thus collected would normally be accessible through the network, either by anonymous ftp or via the web pages. The operator will also backup the data onto appropriate media for despatch to the user. While confidentiality will be maintained as far as practicably possible, it cannot be guaranteed.
Quality Assurance
The operator will index the early
images of any data set, and process a small wedge of the data, to the point
of scaling and merging, in order to assess the quality of the data. The
user will have the responsibility of optimising and completing the data
reduction. Any preliminary data produced in the course of the experiment
will be used for quality assessment. If the user is in contact, an explicit ‘Proceed’ instruction
will be expected. Otherwise, the limits of acceptability indicated in the Data
Sheet will apply.
Turn around will be as short as possible, within the limitations of the queue
system. If specific target dates are to be met, the requirement should be discussed
beforehand with DL staff.
Contacts
For general queries about the data
collection service and to submit your data sheets contact Pierre
Rizkallah or James
Nicholson.
For queries about leaving your
samples in the Structural Biology Laboratory at Daresbury contact Theonie
Georgiou.
