Radiation damage workshop

Chicago, IL USA – December 1 - 2, 2001

The Second Int’l Workshop on Radiation Damage to Crystalline Samples was held at the APS, Chicago, December 1-2, 2001. There were 17 presentations and 49 participants who engaged in lively and extensive discussion throughout the Workshop. Topics included: experiences of data collection at very high intensities, radiation damage at specific sites in a protein, effect of damage on structure determination by MAD and SAD, modelling of putative heating effects at high intensities, experience of the use of helium for cryo-cooling, and the assessment of the onset of increasing degrees of radiation damage as a function of dose and dose rate.

There was a protracted debate on the best radiation damage indicators. Further questions requiring experimental answers were posed and best practice for such systematic studies was discussed. This included the necessity of stating the incident and absorbed doses for all measurements, and the care required in varying only one experimental parameter at a time.

The Workshop was funded by DoE-OBER and NIHNCMR, USA, and organized by E. Garman (Oxford), C. Nave (SRS, Daresbury) and G. Rosenbaum (Georgia). Information can be obtained at www.aps.anl.gov/conferences/damage. Eight papers containing material presented at the workshop will appear in the Journal of Synchrotron Radiation, September 2002.

Elspeth F. Garman