Call for proposals in neutron protein crystallography at the ILL You are invited to apply for beam time for the neutron Laue diffractometer, LADI-III, at the Institut Laue Langevin, Grenoble, France. The deadline for proposal submission is Tuesday, 6 March 2007, midnight (Central European time)
The new LADI-III neutron diffractometer at the ILL LADI-III is dedicated to neutron protein crystallography at high-resolution (1.5Å 2.5Å) and is used to study key hydrogen atoms and water structure in protein single crystal structures. Major improvements in the design have been made compared to the original LADI instrument with the image plates now located on and read from the interior, rather than the exterior of the drum. The transferal of the image plates and readout system to the interior provides an increase in neutron detection by a factor of three. Furthermore the radius of the drum has been increased which reduces both the number of spatially overlapped reflections and the background on the detector. Current projects aim to address specific questions such as enzymatic mechanism, ligand-binding interactions, solvent effects, structure dynamics and their implications. Through protocols developed for the successful cryo-cooling of large protein crystals data can be collected at cryo-temperatures as well as room temperature. Deuterium labeling (http://www.ill.fr/YellowBook/deuteration/index.htm) A joint ILL/EMBL Deuteration laboratory has been established as part of the Partnership for Structural Biology [PSB]. Its purpose is to develop tools and expertise needed to produce deuterated materials for neutron scattering experiments as well as improved systems and technologies for the production and analysis of deuterium-labeled biological macromolecules. Thanks to the ILL/EMBL deuteration laboratory, the production in E. Coli and purification of fully deuterated proteins has now become routine so that it is possible to use much smaller crystal volumes (~0.1 mm3) and/or address much larger unit-cell projects (>150Å). For further information about LADI-III or the deuteration laboratory, please contact Matthew Blakeley ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) or Michael Haertlein ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) respectively. Proposal submission is only possible electronically. Electronic Proposal Submission (EPS) is possible via our Visitors Club (http://club.ill.fr/cv/), once you have logged in with your personal username and password. The web system will be operational from 1 February 2007. Please allow sufficient time for any unforeseen computing hitches. You will receive full support from the Visitors Club team. If you have any difficulties at all, please contact our web-support ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). Scheduling period Those proposals accepted at the next round will be scheduled during the last two cycles in 2007 (148 & 149). Reactor Cycles for 2007 Cycle n° 146 (071) FromTo 20/02/200711/04/2007 Cycle n° 147 (072) FromTo 24/04/200713/06/2007 Cycle n° 148 (073) FromTo 28/08/200717/10/2007 Cycle n° 149 (074) FromTo 30/10/200719/12/2007 *Please note that these dates might change. We therefore encourage you to consult the ILL website, where possible changes will be indicated. *Non-member country use of the ILL beam time From now on, scientists from universities and laboratories of a non-member country can apply for ILL beam time without being obliged to establish collaboration with colleagues from member countries. However, the ILL management will restrict the allocated time to non-member country proposals to 10% of the total available beam time.
