The report on the “Workshop on Biological Science Opportunities Provided by the APS Upgrade” held at Argonne on August 20-21, 2018, is now available.

This workshop was organized “…to discuss the biological science opportunities offered by the unique new capabilities of the [APS Upgrade, APS-U] and how the broad structural biology community could best exploit them.”

The report Executive Summary notes that, “The APS-U takes place in a context where advances in X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) sources and cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) have added to the constellation of techniques and propelled structural biology in new directions. Synergies exist between these different technologies and it is essential to develop enabling technologies that exploit the unique, world-leading, and synergistic characteristics of each light source to boost capabilities for producing leading-edge biological research for U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) missions in energy and environment, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) missions in human health.
“Workshop attendees identified several scientific challenges requiring novel high-throughput capabilities that can bridge the gap in our understanding of the relations between sequence, structure, dynamics, function, and phenotype. Three-dimensional imaging of macromolecules with X-rays provides a crucial component for enabling a predictive understanding of sequence-to-function, knowledge that is essential for successfully engineering protein targets and pathways of direct relevance to DOE and NIH missions.”

The 24-page report (ANL-19/04) is available as a pdf download from: https://www.aps.anl.gov/files/APS-sync/aps_reports/files/APS_2030275.pdf