ALS Efficiently Networking Advanced Beam Line Experiments (ALS-ENABLE)

Overall Summary/Abstract The overall goal of this proposal is to continue to provide an integrated, efficient synchrotron structural biology Resource to the research community. This Resource, called ALS-ENABLE, is located at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) in Berkeley, California. The team has two decades of experience operating macromolecular X-ray crystallography (MX) and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) beamlines, and more recently, an X-ray footprinting mass spectrometry (XFMS) beamline. The team has worked closely together over the last 4 years to create the ALS-ENABLE Resource, and many of the team members are cross-trained in the three X-ray structural biology methods. During the 4 years we have implemented a transparent interface to the ALS structural biology resources, and helped users pursue successful structure determination for both routine and challenging problems. We have worked with a diverse user community, ranging from experts to new synchrotron users with limited training in structural biology techniques. Where necessary we have guided users through the most appropriate routes for answering their biological question. In this renewal application we propose to make several changes to the Resource in response to recent changes in the field of structural biology, leverage a new high- performance beamline (GEMINI), and incorporate the now mature synchrotron technique of X-ray footprinting (XFMS).