OPERATIONAL STATUS OF 8-BM

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The beamline 8BM was the first NE-CAT operational beamline at the APS. For historic reasons, it is located almost halfway around the ring from our main operations at Sector 24. It covers the energy range of 6.5  14.0 KeV with an energy resolution of 2-3eV. A fan of 1.2 mR of radiation is taken from an APS bending magnet source. In the spring of 2002, the first experiment that produced a macromolecule structure was collected. Continuous refinement of the beamline led to our opening to APS general users in the fall of 2004. At this time our database was launched, it is in continuous use and all users to either of the NE-CAT beamlines have been required to enter the database. Over the past year, the beamline accommodated 45 visits from 35 independent investigators. The majority of the groups were from academic institutions, three were from companies, three others were structural genomics initiatives, and one was a crystallographic school. Data collected on 8-BM led to 17 publications in the calendar year 2005. The beginning of the year 2005 started in user operations, in the fall there was a slight increase in beamtime dedicated to development projects which lead to nearly all the time in early 2006 dedicated to beamline upgrades. The three major upgrades that are discussed elsewhere cover the optics upgrade, installation of the Blu-Ice software package, and installation of the Advanced Light Source (ALS) sample mounting robot. At the beginning of the fall trimester (October 2005), we began commissioning of the implementation of Blu-Ice. This was followed by the installation of the ALS automounter in the second week of November. Finally, the first and second crystals in the double crystal monochromator were upgraded.