BioMAX beamline - Macromolecular crystallography

MAX IV Laboratory

BioMAX is the first X-ray macromolecular crystallography beamline of MAX IV Laboratory. It is a state-of-the-art resource accommodating multiple cutting edge experimental possibilities. The design goal for BioMAX was to create a stable and reliable beamline that is user friendly. The beamline experiment set-up is highly automated, in terms of both sample handling hardware and data analysis, including feedback on the data collection. The X-ray beam focus is 20 x 5 μm2 at the sample position with a photon flux of 2 x 1013 ph/s at 500 mA ring current. The operational energy range of the beamline is 5–25 keV. Alternatively, using aperture overfilling it is possible to obtain a stable 5 x 5 μm2 beam at the sample position. Due to its extensive energy tunability, BioMAX is an ideal source for de novo phasing using the anomalous signal of heavy elements. Beam defocusing creates a practically parallel beam, which can be used to resolve extremely large unit cells > 1000 Å at high resolution. Due to its small beam cross-section and optional parallel beam, BioMAX is an optimal experimental set-up for X-ray crystallography using microcrystals and ultra large unit cells.

• Energy tunable hard x-ray beamline 5-25 keV
• Microdiffractometer MD3
• Large hybrid pixel detector, Eiger 16M
• Automatic sample changer, ISARA, Universial puck and ESRF puck compatible

The service comprises beamtime for carrying out x-ray diffraction experiments. Users are supported on-side by the beamline staff.

The beamline is headed by a beamline scientist, time for experiments is allocated through a peer review process by an external program advisory committee. The scientific scope of the beamline is defined in interaction with the management of MAX IV Laboratory and the Scientific Advisory Committee.