Facility Updates: Remote Access to the SSRL Macromolecular Crystallography Beamlines

Abstract

Since June 2005, the macromolecular crystallography users of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) have had the option to conduct diffraction experiments from their home institutions and other remote locations by means of advanced software tools that enable network-based control of highly automated beam lines. Remote experimenters have access to the same tools as local users, and have the capability to mount, center, and screen crystalline samples, and to collect, analyze, and backup diffraction data. Automated sample mounting is accomplished with the Stanford Auto-Mounting System (SAM) [1–3 Cohen, A. E., McPhillips, S. E., Song, J., Miller, M. D. and for the SSRL SMB and JCSG Groups. 2005. Automation of High-Throughput Protein Crystal Screening at SSRL. Synch. Rad. News, 18: 28–35. Van den Bedem, H., Miller, M. D., Wolf, G. and for the SSRL SMB and JCSG Groups. 2003. Towards Automated Data Collection at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory. Synch. Rad. News, 16: 15 Cohen, A. E., Ellis, P. J., Miller, M. D., Deacon, A. M. and Phizackerley, R. P. 2002. An Automated System to Mount Cryo-Cooled Protein Crystals on a Synchrotron Beamline, Using Compact Sample Cassettes and a Small-Scale Robot. J. Appl. Cryst., 35: 720–726. ], beamline and experimental control is carried out using Blu-Ice/DCS [4 McPhillips, T. M., McPhillips, S. E., Chiu, H. -J., Cohen, A. E., Deacon, A. M., Ellis, P. J., Garman, E., González, A., Sauter, N. K., Phizackerley, R. P., Soltis, S. M and Kuhn, P. 2002. Blu-Ice and the Distributed Control System: Software for Data Acquisition and Instrument Control at Macromolecular Crystallography Beamlines. J. Synchrotron Rad., 9: 401–406. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]], and additional remote monitoring of the experiment and data backup is supported with several web-based applications [5 Eriksson, T., Chiu, H.-J., Sharp, K., McPhillips, T., McPhillips, S., Sauter, N., Soltis, M. and Kuhn, P. 2002. Collaboratory for Macromolecular Crystallography at SSRL. Acta Cryst., A58(Supplement): C73 [Google Scholar]]. The highly graphical applications and computational resources at SSRL are accessed through a client/server application that uses minimal resources on the client side and has a typical response close to that obtained at the beamline.