ALSNews Vol. 210, OCtober 30, 2002
ALSNews is a biweekly electronic newsletter to keep users and other interested parties informed about developments at the Advanced Light Source, a national user facility located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California. To be placed on the mailing list, send your name and complete internet address to ALSNews@lbl.gov. We welcome suggestions for topics and content.
Previous Issues are available.
Table of Contents
- Aquaporin Structure Elucidates Water Transport
- Yves Petroff Wraps Up ALS Advisory Role
- Brief Shutdown Planned for November
- Staffing Change in User Services
- Who's in Town: A Sampling of ALS Users
- Operations Update
1. AQUAPORIN STRUCTURE ELUCIDATES WATER TRANSPORT
by Annette Greiner
(Contact: bkjap@lbl.gov)
From aqueducts to osmosis, water transport is crucial to life. Yet, precisely how life manages the transport of water across membranes has remained a mystery for eons--until now. A team of researchers from the Berkeley Lab Life Sciences Division has solved the structure of aquaporin-1 (AQP1), a membrane protein that controls the movement of water molecules into and out of mammalian cells. It is a member of the aquaporin superfamily, whose members transport water or water and glycerol or urea. The new structure offers a resolution of 2.2 angstroms, allowing researchers to deduce just how the protein does its job.
Read the full story at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/science/sci_archive/54aquaporin.html.
Publication about this research: H. Sui, B.-G. Han, J.K. Lee, P. Walian, and B.K. Jap, "Structural basis of water-specific transport through the AQP1 water channel," Nature 414, 878 (2001).
2. YVES PETROFF WRAPS UP ALS ADVISORY ROLE
(Contact: NVSmith@lbl.gov)
After 19 months at the ALS, Yves Petroff's tenure as special advisor to Director Daniel Chemla has come to a successful conclusion marked by a farewell reception in which Chemla credited Petroff for stimulating numerous changes that have boosted the facility's efficiency and productivity. With his international reputation for leadership in synchrotron radiation-related research and his years of experience as director of the highly successful European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Petroff had been called in to provide advice and counsel in the formulation and implementation of science policy, long-term strategic planning, and interactions with the scientific community. At the ALS, he played a key role both in assessing strengths and weaknesses of the overall ALS scientific portfolio and in using that information to catalyze new successful programs. Petroff also reviewed ALS management's approach to providing scientific support to users, including the efforts of the User Services, Experimental Systems, and Scientific Support Groups.
3. BRIEF SHUTDOWN PLANNED FOR NOVEMBER
(Contact: SLRossi@lbl.gov)
The ALS will shut down for two weeks next month, beginning on Monday, November 4. Major tasks scheduled for this shutdown include preparations for expansion in Sector 12, where modifications will be made to the shield wall and electrical panels to accommodate the growth of superbend beamlines in the sector. Beamlines 12.2.2 (high-pressure diffraction) and 12.3.1 (protein crystallography) are already under construction. Other major tasks include the removal of two third-harmonic cavities from the storage ring to improve longitudinal beam stability at 1.9-GeV operation and the replacement of carbon filters, used for protein crystallography applications, in the Sector 5 beamlines.
The Sector 12 electrical panel work will cause a few minor inconveniences due to the associated electrical interruptions. Normal lighting in Sectors 11 through 4 will be shut off November 4 - 5 and there will be brief (~15-minute) interruptions to network availability on November 5 (at 6 a.m.) and November 8 (at 6 p.m.). The ventilation system will also be shut down November 6 - 8. An emergency generator will be brought in to help minimize power interruptions; it will be located in the driveway outside the roll-up door near Sector 12 (the "B door"). Any questions or issues arising from these circumstances can be directed to Steve Rossi (SLRossi@lbl.gov).
The installation and maintenance tasks are scheduled to be completed on Saturday, November 9, to be followed by a quick start-up effort and several days of special operations shifts, with light returning to users on Friday, November 15. We anticipate another smooth and safe shutdown.
4. STAFFING CHANGE IN USER SERVICES
(Contact:GFKrebs@lbl.gov)
The ALS User Program, administered through the User Services Group, will soon be under new management. Current User Program Administrator Jeremy Coyne will transition into the role of Resource Analyst in the Budget Section of the ALS Planning Group, starting November 1. Stepping in will be Jeffrey Troutman, who most recently served as Executive Administrator to the head of Berkeley Lab's Administrative Services Department. Jeff has also worked for the Joint Genome Institute and SEMI, a semiconductor industry trade association, organizing conferences and educational programs. He has a BA from the University of Arizona and is working on an MBA at California State University, Hayward. Congratulations to Jeremy, and welcome to Jeff!
5. WHO'S IN TOWN: A SAMPLING OF ALS USERS
Following are some of the experimenters who will be collecting data during the next week at the ALS.
Beamline 1.4.3
Felicia Betancourt (Berkeley Lab)
Hoi-Ying Holman (Berkeley Lab)
Beamline 4.0.2
Jeff Kortright (Berkeley Lab)
Beamline 7.0.1
Steve Kevan (Univ. of Oregon)
Elaine Seddon (Daresbury Laboratory, UK)
Beamline 7.3.1.1
Mikhail Zharnikov (Univ. Heidelberg, Germany)
Beamline 8.0.1
Satish Myneni (Princeton Univ.)
Beamline 9.3.1
James Cotter (Univ. of Nevada, Reno)
Beamline 10.0.1
James Allen (Univ. of Michigan)
Erwin Poliakoff (Louisiana State Univ.)
Beamline 10.3.2
Donald Sparks, Gerald Hendricks (Univ. of Delaware)
6. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(Contact: Lampo@lbl.gov)
For the user runs of October 9 - 14, 15 - 20, and 22 - 28, the beam reliability (time delivered/time scheduled) was 93%. Of the scheduled beam, 86% was delivered to completion without interruption. There were no significant outages.
Long-term and weekly operations schedules are available on the Web (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/schedules/index.html). Requests for special operations use of the "scrubbing" shift should be sent to Bruce Samuelson (BCSamuelson@lbl.gov, x4738) by 1:00 p.m. Friday. The Accelerator Status Hotline at (510) 486-6766 (ext. 6766 from Lab phones) features a recorded message giving up-to-date information on the operational status of the accelerator.
ALSNews is a biweekly electronic newsletter to keep users informed about developments at the Advanced Light Source, a national user facility located at Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California. To be placed on the mailing list, send your email address to ALSNews@lbl.gov. We welcome suggestions for topics and content. Submissions are due the Friday before the issue date.
LBNL/PUB-863
Editors: lstamura@lbl.gov, alrobinson@lbl.gov, amgreiner@lbl.gov
This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC03-76SF00098.