Diamond is a leader in the development of cutting-edge facilities for the life sciences. In collaboration with the Rosalind Franklin Institute and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Diamond have received funding from Wellcome Trust to develop a high energy electron crystallography instrument to complement the other MX beamlines at Diamond.
A new opportunity has arisen for a HeXI Principal Beamline Scientist (PBS), which will lead the design, construction and implementation of the HeXI beamline in close collaboration with the VXMm beamline team and other engineering support groups. You will also supervise a small team to establish a competitive research programme which exploits the capabilities of HeXI and Diamond.
The post is underpinned by funding for a post-doctoral research associate linked to the role, subject to a suitable case being made to support research and development within the group. Furthermore, Diamond has a successful PhD programme and is strategically partnered with a number of doctoral training centres across the UK providing the opportunity for PhD studentships. You will have access to state-of-the-art laboratories for structural and cellular biology embedded at Diamond and within the Research Complex at Harwell to pursue your research.
Instrumentation and software development is facilitated by dedicated support from Diamonds computing, engineering and scientific software groups as well as partnerships with CCP4 and the recently established Rosalind Franklin Institute (who are close partners of the HeXI project) amongst others. Candidates are expected to apply for external grant funding through national and international funding agencies to take full advantage of the stimulating and exciting research environment at Diamond.
The HeXI project goals are to utilise existing expertise in the development of high throughout end-stations for macromolecular crystallography and combine them with advanced electron accelerator technology to develop a dedicated electron diffraction facility for structural biology. The beamline will enable both standard and serial crystallography data collection and optionally some imaging capabilities can be explored and developed.
The macromolecular crystallography (MX) group at Diamond comprises 7 world-class MX beamlines with unique capabilities and is complemented by dedicated beamlines for BIOSAXS, CD, X-ray imaging and spectroscopy, IR-microspectroscopy and the UK’s national Cryo-EM centre (eBIC). The MX group at Diamond established the first dedicated synchrotron-based labs for X-ray fragment screening (X-Chem) and membrane proteins (MPL). In addition, the UK XFEL hub provides a focus for XFEL work, engaging UK users in serial crystallography experiments around the world, and directs UK developments at the SPB/SFX instrument at the European XFEL. The MX group has a strong software development programme which includes development of the DIALS integration software package, ISPyB/SynchWeb and automation pipelines.
Find out more and apply here.
