On May 14, ALS staff gathered in front of the iconic dome to take a new group photo. The new picture is featured in a photo exhibit showcasing ALS people and events over the last 20 years. See the full-sized version and download a copy here.
One Vaccine Leads to Another
Diphtheria is a potentially lethal respiratory disease that is fairly well controlled by vaccines discovered early last century. These vaccines have been extremely effective; studies on one vaccine in particular, the nontoxic form of the diphtheria toxin (DT), have informed other vaccines. Recently, researchers solved several structures of a nontoxic DT using data obtained at ALS Beamline 5.0.3, resolving a long-standing scientific puzzle and leading the way to development of even better vaccines for a variety of bacterial diseases.Read more…
Strongly covalent metal-oxygen multiple bonds (metal oxos) hold the key to a wide variety of vital chemical processes. Spectroscopic and computational analyses of several metal oxides has quantified trends in metal oxo bonding for transition metals across the periodic table. Read more…
2013 ALS User Meeting: 20th Anniversary and T-Shirt Design Contest
Planning is well underway for this year’s ALS User Meeting, which will be held at Berkeley Lab, October 7-9. The meeting will feature plenary sessions, keynote speakers, focused workshops, poster session and student poster competition, and a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the ALS. As part of the celebration, we are bringing back the famous (or infamous to some) ALS User Meeting T-Shirt Design Contest. Users and staff are invited to submit entries featuring some aspect of the ALS–science, history, building, people, etc.–either as rough designs, concepts, or polished artwork. Entries should be no larger than 8.5″ x 11″. The 20th anniversary logo (shown at left) will also be on the T-shirt or can be integrated into a design if desired.
The deadline is Saturday, June 15. The winning design will be featured on T-shirts for the User Meeting. Please send entries to Liz Moxon (ejmoxon@lbl.gov) or by mail to EJ Moxon, ALS MS15R0317, Berkeley, CA 94720. The contest is sponsored by the ALS Users’ Executive Committee.
Ring Leader: Hoi-Ying Holman, BSISB
Hoi-Ying Holman, head of the Chemical Ecology Group in Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division (ESD), is the director of the Berkeley Synchrotron Infrared Structural Biology (BSISB) Program at ALS Beamlines 1.4 and 5.4, which focuses on
Industry @ ALS: Diabetes Drug Developed at ALS Gains FDA Approval
In January 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved NESINA for the treatment of type 2 diabetes in adults as an adjunct to diet and exercise. NESINA was invented by scientists at Takeda California, who used ALS Beamlines 5.0.2 and 5.0.3 to collect x-ray diffraction data. Read more…
Big Data Challenges to be Featured at NUFO Annual Meeting, June 19-21
The National User Facilities Organization (NUFO) will meet June 19-21 at Berkeley Lab to explore the challenges of handling, analyzing, and archiving the huge amounts of data created in scientific research. In addition to plenary talks and breakout sessions based on the meeting theme, “The Future of Scientific Data: Strategies for Facilities,” there will workshops focusing on social media for scientific outreach, communications strategies, visa benchmarking, and scientific productivity metrics. More information about the meeting, registration, and the agenda can be found here.
Founded in 1990, NUFO represents the interests of all users who conduct research at U.S. national scientific user facilities, as well as scientists from U.S. universities, laboratories, and industry who use similar facilities outside the United States. Find out more about NUFO’s activities in support of users, including an upcoming visit to Capitol Hill, on the NUFO Web site.
Events
ALS Science Café, Friday, July 12, User Support Building, R15-253
Speakers include Christine Beavers, Eoin Brodie, Xiaodan Gu
ICOLS 2013: 21st International Conference on Laser Spectroscopy June 9-14, 2013; Berkeley, CA, USA
SNS2013: Spectroscopies in Novel Superconductors July 24-28, 2013; Berkeley, CA, USA
VUVX2013: 38th International Conference on Vacuum UV and X-ray Physics July 12-19, 2013; Hefei, China
ISWAMP2: 2nd Conference on Intense Field, Short Wavelength Atomic and Molecular Processes July 20-22, 2013; Xi’an, China
The UEC met in early May to discuss the upcoming User Meeting, the workplace environment at the ALS, and beamline metrics. If you have any comments on any of these topics, please do not hesitate to send an email or talk to any member of the UEC. We are here to represent you and we take our job seriously!
The call is now officially out for workshop suggestions for this year’s User Meeting (Oct 7-9). If you have a workshop idea, please send an email to Kevin McCarty or Scott Classen. Please include:
1) The workshop title
2) The organizers and their affiliations
3) A short (one paragraph) description of the topical area, why it is timely, and the target audience
4) A list of possible speakers, with their affiliation and topic, and whether each speaker has committed to attending.
The deadline is May 31, so be sure to get your proposals in soon!
For the user runs from April 18 to May 13, 2013, the beam reliability [(time scheduled – time lost)/time scheduled)] was 97.0%. For this period, the mean time between failures (MTBF) was 33.7 hours, and the mean time to recovery (MTTR) was 69 minutes. There were no significant interruptions.
More detailed information on reliability is available on the ALS reliability bulletin board, which is located in the hallway between the ALS and the control room in Building 80. Questions about beam reliability should be directed to Dave Richardson (DBRichardson@lbl.gov, x4376).
ALS Staff Scientist Alex Hexemer has received an Early Career Research Program Award to create a “High Performance Toolkit for Photon Science.” Information regarding 2013 award winners can be found on the Office of Science Early Career Research Program Web site.
Proposal Scores Posted
Proposal and beamline cutoff scores for the August-December 2013 run are now posted.
On May 14, ALS staff gathered in front of the iconic dome to take a new group photo. The new picture is featured in a photo exhibit showcasing ALS people and events over the last 20 years. See the full-sized version and 
Diphtheria is a potentially lethal respiratory disease that is fairly well controlled by vaccines discovered early last century. These vaccines have been extremely effective; studies on one vaccine in particular, the nontoxic form of the diphtheria toxin (DT), have informed other vaccines. Recently, researchers solved several structures of a nontoxic DT using data obtained at ALS Beamline 5.0.3, resolving a long-standing scientific puzzle and leading the way to development of even better vaccines for a variety of bacterial diseases.
Strongly covalent metal-oxygen multiple bonds (metal oxos) hold the key to a wide variety of vital chemical processes. Spectroscopic and computational analyses of several metal oxides has quantified trends in metal oxo bonding for transition metals across the periodic table. 
Hoi-Ying Holman, head of the Chemical Ecology Group in Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division (ESD), is the director of the Berkeley Synchrotron Infrared Structural Biology (BSISB) Program at ALS Beamlines 1.4 and 5.4, which focuses on
In January 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved NESINA for the treatment of type 2 diabetes in adults as an adjunct to diet and exercise. NESINA was invented by scientists at Takeda California, who used ALS Beamlines 5.0.2 and 5.0.3 to collect x-ray diffraction data. 
The National User Facilities Organization (NUFO) will meet June 19-21 at Berkeley Lab to explore the challenges of handling, analyzing, and archiving the huge amounts of data created in scientific research. In addition to plenary talks and breakout sessions based on the meeting theme, “The Future of Scientific Data: Strategies for Facilities,” there will workshops focusing on social media for scientific outreach, communications strategies, visa benchmarking, and scientific productivity metrics. More information about the meeting, registration, and the agenda can be found 
ALS Staff Scientist Alex Hexemer has received an Early Career Research Program Award to create a “High Performance Toolkit for Photon Science.” Information regarding 2013 award winners can be found on the 
Proposal and beamline cutoff scores for the August-December 2013 run 
