BioCARS welcomed more than 60 people to celebrate our upgrade of beamline 14-ID. With its new optics and improved time resolution, many challenging new domains become accessible, including more complex biological molecules, irreversible reactions, and important biological processes such as cooperativity, signal transduction, and catalysis.
BioCARS is a national user facility for synchrotron-based macromolecular crystallography at Sector 14 of the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory.
BioCARS is an integral part of the multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary Consortium for Advanced Radiation Sources (CARS), managed by the University of Chicago Center for Advanced Radiation Sources.
The mission of BioCARS is to develop the resources and facilities necessary to foster frontier research in the field of macromolecular crystallography. BioCARS provides state-of-the art facilities, scientific and technical support for Laue and time-resolved crystallography, studies of macromolecular assemblies that form crystals with large unit cells, MAD phasing, and ultra-high resolution crystallography. In all cases, the goal is to understand basic biological processes in structural terms, at the atomic resolution level. Scientific problems addressed by BioCARS users and staff are fundamental to basic science, highly relevant to significant biomedical problems and of great practical importance to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
BioCARS operates two experimental stations, embedded in a Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) facility. BSL-3 synchrotron-based capability is unique in the United States and permits safe studies of biohazardous materials, such as pathogenic human viruses.
More about BioCARS: Facility and Scientific Mission › (PDF)
Time-resolved crystallography: past, present and future › (PDF)
