A Nobel for Atomic-level “Pictures” of Protein Factories

Two recipients of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry have strong ties to NSLS. Venki Ramakrishnan, a former employee in Brookhaven’s biology department and long-time NSLS user, now at Cambridge University, and Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University, also a long-time NSLS user, shared the prize with Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science for their work on the structure and function of the ribosome. In the late 1990s, Ramakrishnan and Steitz used protein crystallography at the NSLS and other light sources solve the high-resolution structures for two ribosome subunits crucial to understanding everything from how the ribosome achieves its amazing precision to how different antibiotics bind to it.

Contracts Awarded for Production of NSLS-II Storage Ring Magnets

The last of seven contracts for the production of the NSLS-II storage ring magnets are awarded. A total of 826 magnets will be built by vendors in China, Denmark, New Zealand, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

NSLS Hosts First Training Session on Solution X-ray Scattering

About a dozen researchers from eight different institutions gather at NSLS to learn the ways of solution x-ray scattering. The inaugural training session was based at X9, a newly commissioned beamline that specializes in taking small angle x-ray scattering measurements — data that are very valuable for studying biological macromolecules.