By Phil Williams
A consortium of Southeastern universities, coordinated by researchers from the University of Georgia, signed a memorandum of understanding on March 12 with the Advanced Photon Source at the Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago. The pact could revolutionize structural research in the Southeast by allowing access to one of the world’s most powerful X-ray facilities, where scientists can study materials science, molecular environmental science and structural biology.
Built at a cost of more than $800 million, the advanced photon-source X-ray began producing super-intense X-ray beams three years ago and has already drawn some 20 collaborative access teams (CATs) from around the country, including such institutions as Harvard, Yale, MIT, Johns Hopkins and Stanford. The new team is the first from the Southeastern United States.
While the APS maintains the vast X-ray ring itself, collaborators must pay for “beamlines”--access points through which the powerful X-rays can be guided and used for scientific research.
“Like a five-star hotel giving out some of its rooms permanently to those who can provide furniture, the Advanced Photon Source gives out some of its ports to those groups or institutions who can provide beamlines,” explains B.C. Wang, Ramsey--Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar of X-Ray Crystallography at UGA.
Wang brought together representatives from a number of universities in the South, raising more than $10 million to purchase equipment for use at the APS. He now serves as director of the board of the region’s CAT. Design and construction of the equipment for the first of two beamlines planned for use by the partners from the Southeast will take about three years.
The Southeastern Regional CAT was created after an organizational meeting in May 1997 at UGA. Current members of the team are the universities of Alabama (at Birmingham and Hunstville), Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri-Kansas City, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, as well as the National Institutes of Health. Cost of a single beamline is around $7 million; because more than that has already been raised, the team has agreed to support two beamlines, costing between $13 million and $15 million.
Other institutions involved in the effort include Georgia Tech, the Medical University of South Carolina, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Florida State, Emory, Duke, Clemson, North Carolina State and Vanderbilt universities.
The Georgia Research Alliance, a consortium of industry, business and government, is also a major player in the Southeastern collaborative access team. UGA, Georgia Tech and Emory each contributed $500,000 toward the construction of the beamlines, and the Georgia Research Alliance matched that amount, with a $1.5 million contribution.
“Our relationship with Argonne National Laboratory represents an important step in enhancing the state’s research enterprise,” says Michael Cassidy, vice president of the Georgia Research Alliance. “This new resource will establish Georgia as the leader in the Southeast in support of biotechnology and provide our academic and industrial partners with access to the nation’s most advanced X-ray facility. We are delighted to be part of this program.”
Scientists have used powerful X-rays to help decode molecular structures for several decades--from basic information on the structure of DNA to the design of new medicines. Rapidly advancing technology has led to an increase in the number of structural biologists, and their number in the South has tripled in the past five years.
Recognizing the need for a facility that no individual institution could build, the federal Department of Energy funded the construction of the Advanced Photon Source--one of the most powerful X-ray facilities in the world--at the Argonne National Laboratory.
“The new agreement will provide structural scientists in the SER-CAT with reliable, rapid and timely access to the best possible synchrotron beamlines at the Advanced Photon Source,” says Wang. “SER-CAT will continue to coordinate fund raising and will manage this multi-user scientific enterprise.”
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