Frontiers in Microscopy & Microanalysis Seminar - BioSAXS - The future of solution scattering at the Australian Synchrotron

5 November 2021

This Friday, we will be joined for a Frontiers in Microscopy and Microanalysis seminar by Dr. Andy Clulow, direct from the Australian Synchrotron. Andy is a beamline scientist on the BioSAXS beamline, one of the new facilities being built under the Synchrotron’s BRIGHT program. BioSAXS is designed to be a world-class solution scattering facility for many soft-matter and nanomaterials applications as well as its flagship structural biology program, and to provide access to the nano- and meso-scale structure of a wide range of materials in solution. The new beamline will pair well with the Xenocs Xeuss SAXS instrument currently available at the CMM, as well as the existing SAXS/WAXS and neutron beamlines at ANSTO. Please join us to hear more about this exciting piece of national infrastructure.  

Date/Time: Friday 5th November, 1pm – 2pm (AEST)

Title: BioSAXS - The future of solution scattering at the Australian Synchrotron (flyer)

Presenter: Dr Andy Clulow

Zoom: https://uqz.zoom.us/j/88007993590

While the beamline is in the commissioning phase, Andy is keen to hear from the local community on proposed experiments and potential setups. He would love to get in touch with individual researchers here in Queensland, so if you are interested in talking to him directly before or after the presentation, please contact Lachlan at l.casey1@uq.edu.au.

Abstract:

This presentation will showcase the forthcoming capabilities of the BioSAXS beamline at the Australian Synchrotron (ANSTO), part of the BRIGHT suite of beamlines currently under construction. BioSAXS is scheduled to phase in user operations in late 2022 and will be a high-flux small angle X-ray scattering beamline dedicated to the characterisation of solutions, dispersions and gels. The high flux of the beamline will provide enhanced data quality and kinetic resolution, allowing for time-resolved studies on the millisecond timescale. A range of sample environments will be made available for users allowing for highly automated sample loading/measurement, temperature control, shear and will have the flexibility to incorporate user-designed sample environments. The capabilities of the beamline will be discussed in the context of complementary capabilities of the wider scattering group, incorporating the existing SAXS/WAXS beamline. A summary of both the currently operational and forthcoming BRIGHT beamlines will be provided to give prospective users a snapshot of the techniques available at the synchrotron. Feedback from prospective solution scattering users will also be sought, such that we can engineer in solutions for their proposed experiments now during the commissioning phase.

Biography:

Andy Clulow is a beamline scientist on the BioSAXS beamline currently under commissioning at the Australian Synchrotron (ANSTO). Andy has worked in the field of physical materials chemistry since completing his PhD at UQ in 2013. He has worked across a number of fields including explosives sensing, thin film organic electronics, milk lipid self-assembly during digestion and drug/nutrient delivery. The common thread in his career to date has been the use of neutron and X-ray scattering techniques to study how underlying nanoscale structure drives the function of applied materials. Andy has been an active member of the research community having served on the Australian Neutron Beam User Group executive committee, the Australian Synchrotron User’s Advisory Committee and the organising committee for the Australian Colloid and Interface Symposium in 2019.

Before joining ANSTO, Andy was an ARC DECRA fellow at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences studying the self-assembly of complex lipid mixtures designed to replicate breast milk during digestion. His work as part of the Pharmaceutical Milkshake Team in Ben Boyd’s lab contributed to their being awarded the team Eureka Prize for innovative use of technology in 2020.

All welcome!

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