The SCSB X-ray Crystallography Laboratory is located on the 6th floor of
the Libby Moody Thompson Basic Science Building. Its mission is to provide
access to state of the art X-ray diffraction instrumentation and the
associated support facilities for crystallographic research at UTMB.
The Center has recently installed new x-ray diffraction and
solution scattering instrumentation for the lab. The new equipment starts
with the Rigaku Ultimate Home Lab which comprises the unsurpassed high-brilliance
FR-E++DW Superbright x-ray generator, with the industry standard RAXIS-IV++
crystallography system with both Cu and Cr optics. In addition, we have acquired the
innovative Rigaku BioSAXS-1000 with a 96-well automatic sample changer. This is the first
SAXS instrument dedicated to biological research in the southern mid-western states, once
again marking UTMB as a leader in structural biology resources.
The SCSB X-ray Crystallography resources
currently consists of two x-ray area detector systems. The first area detector is a
Rigaku R-Axis-IV++ dual
30cm Imaging Plate detector mounted on the Rigaku FR-E++DW Superbright x-ray generator.
The second detector is a Brüker
D8 Venture with
the high intensity TURBO TXS source, which can reach upto 0.84 Å resolution. For
enhanced data we have available a choice of sample cooling systems. Both systems are
equipped with Crysosystems, the R-AXIS a Cryo Industries of America CRYOCOOLER, the Brüker
an Oxford Cryostream 800. A 4 °C Cold Air refrigerated cooling system is available for
samples which cannot be frozen, or do not require freezing.
The Rigaku BioSAXS-1000 2D-Kratky camera is mounted on the left port of our
Rigaku FR-E++DW Superbright x-ray generator. The camera is equiped with a
96-well automatic sample changer (ASC-96) with an in-vacu quartz flow-cell. In addition,
we have several quartz sample cells for manual loading of smaller sample volumes or
detergent samples, which are not compatible with the ASC-96 liquid handling system. The
quality of SAXS data obtained with the BioSAXS camera has been exceptional. Using our
in-house SAXNS
web-services for
data processing and
analysis the optimal quality data can be collected. It is not unusual to collect
useful data to the limit of the detector (q~0.7 Å-1). This camera offers unsurpassed
solution scattering data for macromolecular samples. For more information visit our SAXNS site.