The ALBA Synchrotron has initiated 2016 with the construction of its 10th beamline: a microfocus beamline devoted to macromolecular crystallography. The project received the formal approval by the Council Rector in 2015. It corresponds to the start-up of the ALBA Phase III beamline portfolio.
This new instrument will give further insight of how biological systems function at the atomic level, determining the three-dimensional structures of macromolecules and complexes. The microfocus beamline will deliver a small X-ray beam of the order of 1 micron at the sample position. The small beam size will allow tackling an increasing number of important projects that are limited by the size of the crystals or by the radiation damage effects. These projects include membrane proteins, protein complexes, DNA-protein complexes and radiation-sensitive proteins. Moreover, the beamline will be the first microfocus beamline in the ALBA Synchrotron.
The main applications of the 10th ALBA beamline are in health and food but also in environmental issues. The search of new drugs against diseases such as AIDS or malaria, new therapies for tumour treatments or the growing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics will find in this instrument a reliable scientific tool. Issues like finding cures for plant and animal diseases, as well as new methods of improving agriculture productivity, can be explored in this new beamline. The interest on macromolecular crystallography techniques is shared between academia and industry.
The budget for the construction of the new microfocus beamline for macromolecular crystallography is 7 million euros. The project will be cofunded by European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) and by ALBA internal budget. It has been started in January 2016 with the appointment of the beamline responsible, for starting the design phase, and it is foreseen to be available for experiments in early 2020.
Doubling the number of beamlines by 2020
The new microfocus beamline is just the first of the phase-III beamlines. The ALBA Synchrotron already has seven beamlines in full operation since 2013 (phase-I), two more in construction that will be available for users at the end of 2016 and 2018 (phase-II) and five new beamlines are planned within phase-III (including the microfocus beamline).
The construction of these beamlines is subjected to secure the necessary cofunding. However, "our goal is to have the 15th beamline initiated by 2020, doubling our current capacity nowadays", says Caterina Biscari, director of the ALBA Synchrotron.
A community that keeps growing
Macromolecular crystallographers are the largest group of synchrotron users in Europe. Their scientific output is outstanding, reflected by the 13 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry in the field of protein crystallography.
In Spain, around 50 research groups have been identified as current users of this synchrotron technique and more are coming in the near future. All of them already used XALOC beamline, in full operation since July 2012. The new beamline will host new research projects that cannot be performed due to the crystals size and radiation sensitivity.
Apart from the support of the Spanish user community and the positive evaluation of the Scientific Advisory Committee of ALBA, this new beamline is one of the strategic priorities of the facility. "Having a state-of-the-art microfocus beamline for macromolecular crystallography can significantly improve the level of research of our country in the strategic field of structural biology, which is one of our commitments", according to Miguel Ángel García Aranda, scientific director of ALBA.
