2010 R&D 100 Winner
Macromolecular crystallography is a powerful method for obtaining the 3D structure information of proteins, nucleic acid, and viruses. Researchers need to irradiate the smallest obtainable crystal, using small-size x-ray beams. Aperture-defined collimating devices serve this purpose, but the manual switching of aperture sizes slows the research process and risks the loss of samples.
The Hard X-ray Uni-body Quad Collimator for Structural Biology from Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Ill., and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, automates the process of switching between various micron-size x-ray beams. It features a uni-body quad collimator, a magnetically indexed kinematic mount, and a precision motion system. Users can select from three discrete mini-beam choices of the incident beam with the press of a button. A scatter guard serves as a background reduction for larger beam sizes. Aperture sizes can be customizable, depending on application. Users can store the coordinates of each mini-beam collimator and scatter guard and recall them to select a particular beam size.
Technology
Collimating device for x-ray crystallography
Developers
Argonne National Laboratory
Life Sciences Institute of University of Michigan
Development Team
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| Front row (l-r): Robert R. Fischetti, Shenglan Xu. Second row: Ruslan Sanishvilli, Sergey Stepanov. Third row: Derek W. Yoder, Sudhir Pothineni. Fourth row: Nagarajan Venugopalan, Michael Becker. Fifth row: Oleg Makarov, Steve Corcoran. |
The Hard X-ray Uni-body Quad Collimator for Structural Biology
Development Team:
Michael Becker, Argonne National Laboratory
Steve Corcoran, Argonne National Laboratory
Robert Fischetti, Argonne National Laboratory
Mark Hilgart, Argonne National Laboratory
Oleg Makarov, Argonne National Laboratory
Craig Ogata, Argonne National Laboratory
Sudhir Pothineni, Argonne National Laboratory
Ruslan Sanishvili, Argonne National Laboratory
Janet Smith, Life Sciences Institute of University of Michigan
Sergey Stepanov, Argonne National Laboratory
Nagarajan Venugopalan, Argonne National Laboratory
Shenglan Xu, Argonne National Laboratory
Derek W. Yoder, Argonne National Laboratory
