Photograph of equipemnt at the beamline BioMAX

BioMAX is the first X-ray macromolecular crystallography beamline of MAX IV Laboratory. It has been in user operation since 2017. The design goal for BioMAX was to create a stable and reliable beamline that is user friendly. The beamline experiment set-up is highly automated, in terms of both sample handling hardware and data analysis, while also being able to accommodate multiple cutting edge experimental possibilities.

The X-ray beam focus is variable between 20 x 5, 50 x 50 and 100 x 100 μm2 at the sample position with a photon flux above 1013 ph/s at 400 mA ring current. Using aperture overfilling it is possible to obtain a minimum size of 5 x 5 μm2 beam at the sample position. The operational energy range of the beamline is 6–24 keV; this extensive energy tunability makes BioMAX is an ideal source for de novo phasing using the anomalous signal of heavy elements. Beam defocusing creates a practically parallel beam, which can be used to resolve extremely large unit cells > 1000 Å at high resolution. Due to its small beam cross-section and optional parallel beam, BioMAX is an optimal experimental set-up for X-ray crystallography using microcrystals and ultra-large unit cells. Synchrotron-based serial crystallography (SSX) experiments, using injector or fixed target sample delivery are also supported at BioMAX.

Available forTechnique description
General UsersConventional rotation data collection (fixed point or helical) at a wide range of energies and variable beam size.
General UsersAutomated sample mounting and dismounting from UniPucks, 29 puck positions in dewar.
General UsersSample temperature 100 K; room temperature with or without humidity control available for manual mounting only.
General UsersSAD and MAD experiments. Interleaved data collection.
General UsersAutomated data integration, scaling and merging. Offline remote access for manual data processsing.
General UsersSX experiments using HVE-injector (High viscosity extrusion injector), fixed target scan using the MD3. Please contact beamline manager.
General UsersElement identification by X-ray Fluorescence. Fast energy scans.
General UsersRemote data collection.
General UsersIn-situ screening with different plate types. Please contact beamline manager.
General UsersFragment-based drug screening. Please contact beamline manager.
Commissioning UsersAutomated sample mounting and dismounting of samples in capillaries. Please contact beamline manager.
See also BioMAX User Information.

Beamline documents

Macromolecular Crystallography Review Report (download PDF)

Page manager: Ana Gonzalez March 14, 2024