Implementation of level-2 biosafety for a macromolecular crystallography beamline at SSRF

Huating Kong; Minjun Li; Qin Xu; Huan Zhou; Feng Yu; Qisheng Wang

Implementation of level-2 biosafety for a macromolecular crystallography beamline at SSRF

Am J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2021 Dec 15;11(6):529-536. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Huating Kong¹, Minjun Li¹, Qin Xu^{1

2}, Huan Zhou¹, Feng Yu¹, Qisheng Wang^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai 201204, China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100049, China.
³ Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai 201800, China.

PMID: 35003890
PMCID: PMC8727877

Abstract

Macromolecular crystallography is commonly used to determine the structure of biological macromolecules. Currently the beamlines at synchrotron radiation facilities play an important role in macromolecular crystallography, and have produced an enormous number of molecular structures to help solve scientific questions and support applications. Structure information makes significant contributions to the virus-related research as well. However, it is mandatory to be protected the operators under a compatible biosafety infrastructure when a pathological agent is set up in a beamline. Here a level-2 biosafety protection for a macromolecular crystallography beamline at Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) is introduced. To fulfill the biosafety in a radioactive environment, a dedicated design is implemented. Since the beamline will be opened to the external users from nationwide research units, the management process and experimental method are also drawn up.

Keywords: Macromolecular crystallography; beamline; biosafety; crystal structure; in-situ.