Berkeley Lab and ALS Status
Because of the evolving COVID-19 situation, the ALS is closed to most onsite users until further notice. We are preparing for a mixture of remote/mail-in and very limited on-site access during the 2021-1 Spring cycle, and experiments will be exclusively conducted by staff and affiliates who are approved to come on site. Please do not register to arrive on site for the 2021-1 cycle unless we ask you to.
Berkeley Lab is gradually bringing staff back onto the Lab’s sites over the coming months, consistent with federal, state, and local guidance. These plans began on Monday, June 1, with a small on-site pilot group. In early July, the Lab began Pilot 2a, which increased the number of people on all Lab sites by 200, to a peak number of 1,000 people, and in early August Pilot 2b increased numbers to a peak of 1,200 – still a small fraction of those typically on site.
The most up-to-date details on the Lab’s status can be found here.
Changes to Beamtime Scheduling and Allocation
The following resources are intended to provide users up-to-date information on the ALS’s handling of beamtime allocation, experiment scheduling, and the proposal process.
- ALS Status Summary for Users – Covers status, operating schedule, plan for beamtime allocation, and DOE light source collaboration.
- Frequently Asked Questions – Answers to questions about beamtime scheduling and allocation, the proposal process, qualifications for remote/mail-in access, and more.
- Shipping and Receiving – Provides information for users shipping samples to the ALS for remote/mail-in experiments.
- Restricted Access to Experiment Floor – Instructions for the limited number of users invited to come onsite by ALS beamline scientists (may be subject to change).
- User Town Hall – On July 15, 2020, the ALS held a user town hall to address the facility’s strategy moving forward for access and beamtime allocation, and to answer users’ questions.
COVID-19 Research Capabilities at the ALS
A number of the ALS-ENABLE crystallography beamlines, soft x-ray tomography (2.1), and the BioSAXS beamline (12.3.1), are available for remote collection and service operations in support of COVID-19 research. Please apply through the RAPIDD proposal process.
Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences light sources want to ensure they are doing everything possible to enable research into the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the search for an effective vaccine or other treatment. The DOE supports research into structural biology in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health and other partners. This portal collects relevant structural biology resources in a single location, listing their basic characteristics and a point of contact for each.
