X-Ray Detector for the Life Sciences CAT at the APS

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal requests funds for acquiring state of the art instrumentation for structural biology research on the initial insertion device beamline in the Life Sciences (LS-CAT) sector at the Advanced Photon Source. This beamline will utilize radiation from the first of two (2) undulators that LS-CAT will install and will provide a tunable, high intensity beamline for macromolecular crystallography. Funds for the Phase I construction, which includes this beamline, have already been obtained by LS-CAT and construction is about to begin. It is expected that first use of the beamline will occur in late 2005. The Life Sciences Collaborative Access Team is a consortium of academic and research institutions comprised of Northwestern University, Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, Wayne State University, the Van Andel Institute, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Wisconsin. The investigators participating in LS-CAT are involved in cutting edge structural biology with special emphasis in membrane proteins, multicomponent systems in signaling and protein transport, protein-nucleic acid complexes involved in genome replication, repair, recombination and regulation, and enzymes that are novel targets for mechanistic studies or biotechnology. Many of the researchers associated with LS-CAT have already reached the technical barriers of small crystal size or large unit cells that make access to a dedicated synchrotron source essential to the scientific progress. The instrumentation requested is a large area CCD detector suitable for high resolution studies of individual macromolecules and complexes with large unit cells. The requested detector will have the large surface area, high spatial resolution and rapid read-out that are essential for allowing investigators to tackle increasingly difficult structural problems.