Financial support

for the users coming to the EMBL SAXS beamlines

The BioStruct-X project is funded by the European Commission and dedicated to biological Structure determination at Synchrotron facilities. One of the activities of the BioStruct-X is the financial support to transnational users of synchrotron radiation techniques including SAXS. At the EMBL, the visits to the beamlines X33 and P12 are supported.

The contract of BioStruct-X foresees a centralized submission procedure for projects applying for BioStruct-X support. This means that the groups wishing to request financial support for the measurement have to (re)submit their proposal at the Biostruct-X site. The BioStruct-X funding is largely aimed to support BAG (Block Allocation Group) access mode. In SAXS, given the wide diversity of groups, single group applications will also be considered. Still, the users are encouraged to join into groups (e.g. on geographical principle) wherever possible.

As an alternative and also as an extension of the support offered at the EMBL SAXS beamlines, there is now a possibility to obtain financial support for a combination of SAXS with sample optimization and crystallization experiments. Funded by the European Infrastructure Initiative program P-CUBE, users of the EMBL Hamburg SAXS facilities are given the opportunity to send their samples before the allocated beamtime to the EMBL Hamburg high-throughput crystallization platform. If successful, their crystals may provide an additional entry point for structural analysis by X-ray crystallography. A sample volume of 100 microliters at a concentration of 0.5-1 mM is sufficient for a complete round of initial screening.

In the cases where the samples do not yield crystals, P-CUBE will sponsor a user visit to the SAXS beamline and the Sample Preparation and Characterization (SPC) facility to do a quality assessment of the sample and to optimize sample conditions. The SPC facility offers a variety of tools to improve the general suitability of their samples for structural studies.

P-CUBE will cover travel expenses and accommodation, as well as the costs for access to the local facilities. Support in the design and execution of the necessary experiments will be provided on an individual basis.