Automation of the EMBL Hamburg protein crystallography beamline BW7B.
The EMBL Hamburg Outstation currently operates five synchrotron beamlines for protein crystallography. The strongest of these beamlines is the fixed-energy beamline BW7B which receives about half of the radiation (1.5 mrad) from a 56 pole wiggler located at the DORIS III storage ring at the German synchrotron facility DESY. Over the last years this beamline has been upgraded and equipped with a fully automated crystallographic end-station and a robotic sample changer. The current set-up allows for remote operation, controlled from the user's area, of sample mounting, centering and data collection of pre-frozen crystals mounted in Hampton-type cryovials on magnetic caps. New software and intuitive graphical user interfaces have been developed that control the complete beamline set-up. Furthermore, algorithms for automatic sample centering based on UV fluorescence are being developed and combined with strategy programs in order to further automate the collection of entire diffraction data sets.
European Molecular Biology Laboratory Hamburg Outstation, Notkestrasse 85, D-22603 Hamburg, Germany. ehmke.pohl@psi.ch
Ehmke
E
Pohl
Uwe
U
Ristau
Thomas
T
Gehrmann
Doris
D
Jahn
Bernd
B
Robrahn
Dirk
D
Malthan
Hannes
H
Dobler
Christoph
C
Hermes
D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005858:Germany; D011487:Protein Conformation; D011506:Proteins / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry*; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D012984:Software; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D017356:Synchrotrons / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014584:User-Computer Interface
D011506:Proteins