The BNL Implementation of the LBL Automounter

Dieter Schneider, Mary Carlucci-Dayton
Biology Department
Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton NY 11973

To support a growing FedEx crystallography program at the NSLS as well as to provide the visiting x-ray crystallographer with efficient means for the screening of all available crystals and the selection of the best-in-the-lot for high quality data collection we have built two cryogenic automounters of the ALS/LBNL design. A third is under construction as the mirror image of the first two, and these, adapted to the constraints of the existing beam line. The cryo-components of the PXRR specimen changers are optimized to achieve continuous and frost free operation over many days as well as to minimize the mount / retrieve cycle time. The established preservation of crystals in the automounters will allow us to initiate a program of screening on a bending magnet beam line followed by data collection on selected crystals on the X29 undulator line. Protocols for both screening and full data collection are entered and retrieved from our pxdb data base that is already connecting the activities on all PXRR beam lines from project characterization to data image location. With extensive in-house experience on automounter operation at hand it is our immediate goal to promote the capability with visiting and remote participating investigators as well as to further advance the level of automation.

Acknowledgement: This work is supported by the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health and by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research of the US Department of Energy.