I03 is a state-of-the-art macromolecular crystallography beamline at Diamond, uniquely being capable of collecting data from crystalline samples up to biological containment level 3. Over its lifetime the team has led many of the developments for cryogenic sample automation at Diamond and undergone continual upgrades so that today it provides a highly automated, high throughput beamline for an international programme of MX users.
Three new opportunities have arisen for Principal Beamline Scientists to join our team, including for an internationally recognised structural biologist and/or methods development expert to take up this role at group leader level for the I03 Beamline, to guide and develop the beamline.
In the role of Principal Beamline Scientist (PBS) you will supervise a small team of scientists to establish a competitive research programme which exploits the capabilities of I03 and Diamond and contribute to the development and operation of the I03/MX group international user programme.
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.
I03 is a fully tuneable energy beamline equipped with a state-of-the-art detector (Eiger2 XE 16M) and very high capacity, rapid sample changer (BART) enabling high throughput automated data collection capabilities for MX at Diamond. Looking to the future, the expected Diamond-II upgrade programme of machine and beamlines presents a unique opportunity for the post holder to develop methodologies and a complementary user programme for I03 for structural biology studies, where appropriate exploiting the beamlines unique biological containment level 3 capability.
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.
