ARCHIVE
NEWS AND EVENTS 2002

Click on (some) of the small photographs to see a larger version.

13/12/02

SuperSTEM Building Opening ...more here...
http://www.superstem.dl.ac.uk/index.html

JASRI-CCLRC symposium @ Daresbury Laboratory

The symposium was held on 3-5 December 2002 where projects of mutual interest were discussed. This symposium was the second between the two SR laboratories and followed last year's signing of MOU on 23 January 2001.

The programme of events can be seen here.

John Helliwell and Samar Hasnain on the occasion of the JASRI-CCLRC symposium with the JASRI delegates and colleagues from CCLRC.

NWSGC International Advisory Committee
During the recent International Structural Genomics Meeting in Berlin, the first meeting of the North West Structural Genomics Centre (NWSGC), International Advisory Committee (IAC) was held. The NWSGC IAC draws upon the strengths and experience of leading scientists in the international genomics effort.

Professor Thomas C. Terwilliger (Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA)
Professor S. Samar Hasnain (Daresbury Laboratory, UK)
Professor John R. Helliwell (Daresbury Laboratory, UK)
Professor Udo Heinemann (Berlin, Germany)
Professor Yoshiuke Yokoyama (Riken, Japan)
Sung Ho Kim (Berkeley, USA)

New Arrangements for Access to the CCLRC Large Scale Research Facilities from 25 July 2002

From 1 April 2003, the CCLRC will be responsible for the peer review and scheduling of proposals requesting access to the ISIS, SRS and CLF large scale facilities. These facilities will become “free at the point of access” to the UK academic research community.
The CCLRC will be developing the Quinquennial Review recommendation of a common facility access scheme for the ISIS, SRS and CLF facilities including arrangements for access procedures and the peer review of applications for time on the facilities. In order to do this, the CCLRC recognises the importance of consultation with the facility user communities in order to inform the change process required and to deliver end-user needs.
In addition to consulting users, the CCLRC will build on its existing relationships with the other UK Research Councils to ensure that the current and future facility needs of the UK scientific community are delivered by the ISIS, SRS and CLF facilities.

Lobster Mystery Solved Research carried out by scientists at Imperial College London, the University of Manchester, Daresbury Laboratory and Royal Holloway, University of London, has cracked the puzzle of why lobsters turn pink in the pot. The shell loses its natural blue-black colour when cooked, due to the structure of a protein called beta-crustacyanin. Part of this molecule is able to change shape, bending the shape of another molecule attached to it, called astaxanthin. On cooking, the crustacyanin unit is broken down, and astaxanthin becomes stuck in the orange form. Naomi Chayen, of Imperial College, said that the discovery could lead to new uses for the use of astaxanthin as a drug delivery mechanism for medicines that are insoluble in water.

2002 SR Users Meeting, review of this years meeting, with video presentantions, photographs, poster winners and more. http://www.srs.ac.uk/srum02/index.html

CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory Synchrotron Radiation PhD studentships
Proposals have been invited from UK academics for SR PhD studentship projects to be undertaken jointly with a scientist at Daresbury Laboratory.
CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory will provide the fraction of the subsistence of the student (at RCUK rates) at a percentage equivalent to the time that the student will spend based at Daresbury. In addition appropriate University field rate fees will be covered by Daresbury for the same period. The percentage split of time of the PhD student between Daresbury and the University concerned will be flexible within a range from 33% to 66% for a 3 year period.
Successful projects are listed below

College	University Supervisor	DL Supervisor	Project Title
Biology & Medicine	Prof C D Reynolds School of Biomolecular Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University	M Z Papiz	Expression, purification, crystallisation & structural studies of proteins from Mycobacterium tuberculosis involved in cell wall formation
	Dr K D Rogers Department of Materials and Medical Science, University of Cranfield	C J Hall	Ultrastructure characterisation of pathological tissues vacancy filled
Structural & Environmental Chemistry	Dr J M Cole Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge	S J Teat	Microsecond time-resolved 'photo-crystallography'
Physics	Dr P Strange School of Chemistry & Physics, University of Keele	Z Szotek	Theoretical support for synchrotron experiments on correlated electron
Materials	Prof K P O'Donnell Department of Physics & Applied Physics, University of Strathclyde	F Mosselmans	Lattice location studies of rare earth ions in III-nitrides vacancy filled

Professor Guy Dodson, Head of Structural Biology at York and MRC Mill Hill, recently visited the laboratory to give one of the NWSGC (nwsgc.ac.uk) seminars. Here he is pictured with the new ten pole wiggler magnet array which has been designed and constructed at Daresbury laboratory. Also pictured are Clive Hill and Gary Markey. The multipole wiggler is a state of the art permanent magnet high field device. This would equip the new NWSGC MAD beamline at Daresbury due to become operational next summer.

On the 19th April, Professor Colin Latimer, chair of the SR Users Forum, opened the new Daresbury Amenity Centre, which gives Users a whole new complex to spend their time away from the beamline when at Daresbury. There are five main facilities in the centre.There is a fitness suite with 17 fitness machines; all Users are entitled to use the suite during their time here, though they must first be inducted by the centre manager Tracey Pickthorne ( Monday-Thursday, 10.30am-6.30pm, Friday 8am-4.00pm). There is a suite of six terminals for browsing the web catching up on e-mail in a quiet environment.There is a pool room with two tables for relaxation, (no alcohol unfortunately!) There is a TV room with plenty of seating so you can keep abreast of developments on Albert Square and down Coronation Street, when you are here.

Dr. Hiromichi Kamitsubo, Vice Chairman of Japan Synchrotron Radiation Institute (JASRI), visited the Daresbury laboratory on 20 March. Here he is seen in the Detector development laboratory with William Helsby and Greg Diakun. On the right hand side is seen RAPID-2.

Daresbury Laboratory and the North West Structural Genomics Centre hosted Dr. Murray Gibson (middle left), of the Advanced Photon Source and Prof. Friso Van der Veen (far right), director of the Swiss Light Source. Both Dr. Gibson and Prof. Van der Veen presented seminars informing the laboratory of recent advances at these two third generation light sources.

DNA Model Recognised as New Guinness World Record
The DNA model was built in the Potteries shopping centre, Stoke-on-Trent on the 9th March. The project was a joint venture between Keele University and Daresbury Laboratory.
10.78 metres high and containing more than 1,500 atoms, it represented the sequence of the first 250 base pairs on the first chromosome of the human genome.
Base pairs were built in advance by school children from Cheshire and Staffordshire, with other well known people such as Lords David Puttnam, Robert May and David Sainsbury, Baroness Susan Greenfield, children's TV presenter Johnny Ball and Francis Crick, one of the team that originally discovered the structure of DNA in the 1950's, also contributing base pairs.

The project was funded by EPSRC, the Royal Society of Chemistry and Science Year and built at the start of National Science Week

The second meeting of the SR science cabinet (SRSC) took place under the chairmanship of Professor John Helliwell on 11 February 2002. Professor Gerhard Materlik attended the meeting also and reported on the current status of the Diamond Light Centre Limited. They are pictured with some of the members of the SRSC.

06/02/2002

Max Perutz 1914 - 2002
Early on Wednesday, 6th February, Max Perutz died of cancer after a long and productive life. Starting a Ph.D. in 1936 under J.D. Bernal at the Cavendish Laboratory, he applied X-ray crystallography to proteins and in 1953 developed the method of isomorphous replacement using heavy atoms to solve the phase problem. This led to the solution of the first protein structures, those of myoglobin by his colleague John Kendrew and his collaborators, and of haemoglobin by Perutz and his collaborators. For this, Perutz and Kendrew were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

http://www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/Max_Perutz.html