About LS-CAT
The Life Sciences Collaborative Access Team (LS-CAT) provides
macromolecular crystallography resources for those
with a need to determine the structure of proteins. Mainly LS-CAT
provides access to state of the art x-ray diffraction facilities
at Argonne National
Laboratory's Advanced Photon Source where
extremely intense beams of x-rays are focused using both mirrors and
beryllium lenses onto tiny protein crystals. The x-rays diffracted
by these crystals are collected with giant CCD detectors that produce
the images needed to calculate where the atoms in the protein crystal
are.
LS-CAT was formalized in 2002 with seed money from the State of
Michigan through the Michigan Core Technology
Alliance. Northwestern University was
selected as the managing partner and personnel from
the du
Pont-Northwestern-Dow Collaborative Access Team (DND-CAT) started
work on the design of the facilities.
The LS-CAT facilities include four experimental stations using 2
insertion devices. The main beamline (21-ID-D) uses a shortened "Undulator" A
and a Kohzu
monochromator in a layout very similar to XOR Sector 4
and Northeastern Collaborative
Access Team (NE-CAT), APS Sector 24.
In addition to the main beamline there are three experimental
stations that share a single 3.0 CM undulator. The first two of these
stations use diamond laue monochromators supplied by JJ X-Ray along with beryllium lenses
to focus a beam monochromatic x-rays onto the sample. This allows SAD
experiments to be done at the selenium edge (12.668 KeV). This
arrangement is very similar to the ID14
beamline at the ESRF.
Construction of the LS-CAT facilities started in January 2006. By
December 2006 the construction of the x-ray enclosures had been
completed and the instrumentation of the main station, 21-ID-D, was
far enough along to accommodate an aggressive experimental schedule.
Sadly, one of the driving forces behind the formation of
LS-CAT, Martha
Ludwig, passed away in late November, 2006, just days before the
first x-rays were delivered at LS-CAT for its members. The
experimental facilities at 21-ID are dedicated in her honor.
Current LS-CAT members are
Michigan State University,
University of Michigan,
Wayne State University,
Van Andel Research Institute,
Northwestern University,
University Wisconsin-Madison,
Vanderbilt University,
and
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
