The Structural Biology Facility is essential for the research programs of investigators who are studying the relationship between macromolecular structure and function or who are using protein structure as the starting point for structure-based drug design. The Structural Biology Facility is a unique resource at Northwestern University that capitalizes on the extensive expertise of a large group of users and regular access to the synchrotron radiation X-ray source the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratories, Sector 21, the Life Sciences Collaborative Access Team (LS-CAT), which operates 3 beamlines, with a fourth beamline under construction. The facility also serves to nucleate the development of a local community with expertise in structural and computational biology.
- Synchrotron Crystallography - Advanced Photon Source, Sector 21, LS-CAT:
- 2 Rayonix MX-300 mm (21-ID-D and 21-ID-G) CCD detectors
- 1 Rayonix MX-225 mm (21-ID-F) CCD detector
- 4 Cryogenic Automated Transfer System (CATS) Robotic sample changers
- 4 Oxford cryojet liquid nitrogen cryocooling systems
- 4 MD2 microdiffractometers
- Several Pentium PCs running Linux for instrument control and data processing
- DVD drives and firewire disks for data backup
- Terabytes of disk space for data storage managed as a Lustre file system
- TV monitors and cameras
- Liquid nitrogen dewars
- Assorted cryocrystallography equipment
- In-House Crystallograph
- Chicago Campus:
- Art Robbins, Inc. Phoenix crystallization robot
- Stereomicroscopes (camera equipped, at room temperature and 4 degrees C)
- Incubators for temperature-controlled crystallization
- Evanston Campus:
- 2 Rigaku RU200 X-ray generators, 2 MAR345 image plate detectors controlled by Pentium computers MAR X-ray mirrors, Franks mirrors
- Hydra II 96-Plus One Crystallization Robot
- Robomicroscope automated crystal imaging system
- Stereomicroscopes (at room temperature and 4 degrees C)
- Incubators for temperature-controlled crystallization
- Molecular Characterization
- Chicago Campus:
- Tecan Safire2 multimode, multiplate reader (UV/Vis, Fluorescence, Luminescence)
- Evanston Campus
- Dynamic Light Scattering instrument
- Computational
- Chicago Campus:
- 10 node Pentium 4 Xeon Linux cluster
- 2 Intel Core2 Duo 2.13GHz workstations running Linux (stereo equipped, for model building)
- 2 Intel Core Duo 2.0 GHz iMacs (for visualization / model building)
- DVD/CD writers for quick data backup
- 20 tape LTO system for continuous data backup
- Over 5 Tb of disk storage including RAID systems
- 100/1000base-T Ethernet and Gigabit switched local network
- 1000base-T (Gigabit) Ethernet connection to APS
- Evanston Campus
- 16 node Pentium 4 Xeon/AMD Opteron cluster running Linux
- 5 Intel Core2 Duo 2.13GHz workstations running Linux (stereo equipped, for model building)
- 2 Intel Core Duo 2.0 GHz iMacs (for visualization / model building)
- 2 Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz workstations running Linux (for visualization / model building)
- DVD/CD writers for quick data backup
- 48 tape LTO2 system for continuous data backup
- Over 5 Tb of disk storage including RAID systems
- 100/1000base-T Ethernet and Gigabit switched local network
- 1000base-T (Gigabit) Ethernet connection to APS
- Software - We support a wide-variety of software for structure determination and analysis with identical computing environments on both the Evanston and Chicago campuses. Macromolecular crystallography software includes the CCP4 suite, CNS, SHARP, and SOLVE, and X-ray diffraction data processing programs HKL2000, XDS and MOSFLM. For NMR we support CNS, FELIX and Aria. We support molecular graphics software for model building, analysis and presentation including O, MIDAS, Molscript, Raster3D, RasMol, WHATIF, XtalView, Quanta, COOT, Turbo Frodo, Pymol and GRASP. We support modeling, simulations and drug discovery software packages including DOCK, AutoDock, GOLD, SYBYL, Allegro, Delphi, GROMACS, AMBER, AMSOL, MS, and INSIGHT/DISCOVER.
- Macromolecular Structure Determination and Analysis –
- Equipment for macromolecular crystallographic diffraction data on the Evanston Campus
- Macromolecular crystallography at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) LS-CAT
- Robotics equipment for crystallization experiments on both campuses
- Software for structure analysis (Crystallography, NMR, EM, Modeling, Drug Discovery)
- Advanced graphics facilities for visualization/presentation of molecular structures
- Powerful servers to perform long and complex calculations
- Dynamic Light Scattering instrument for analysis of macromolecules
- High-throughput fluorometry of analysis of macromolecular interactions
- Support and Training
- Macromolecular structure determination
- X-ray Crystallography, from designing crystallization experiments to solving structures
- Computational drug design and structural simulations
- Molecular graphics for analysis and presentation
Director:
Alfonso Mondragon, PhD
a-mondragon@northwestern.edu
Facility Manager:
Pamela J. Focia, PhD
focia@northwestern.edu
Location(s):
- Advanced Photon Source
- Located at Argonne National Laboratory, 30 miles southwest of Chicago
- Crystallography
- Ward and Searle buildings, 8th Floor, 303 East Chicago Avenue
- Cook Hall, 2220 Campus Drive, 4th Floor, Evanston
- Computational
- Ward and Searle buildings, 7th & 8th Floors, 303 East Chicago Avenue, Chicago
- Cook Hall, 2220 Campus Drive, 4th Floor, Evanston
Phone:
312.503.0848
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