It was with a degree of trepidation that I approached my first beamtime. I was well aware that most beamtimes consist of precious little sleep and long hours of work. This apprehension was compounded by the fact that we were only the fifth group ever to use the brand new Scanning X-ray Microscopy (SXM) facility, and the first group to use the cryo capabilities to minimise beam damage and preserve the chemical composition of samples. I’m not sure if any of us really knew what to expect! However, it turns out that the new SXM beamline I08 is perfect for the scientist who wishes to combine cutting edge research with a good night’s rest.
Our aim for this visit to the Diamond Light Source was to produce images – on the tens of nanometre scale – of microbes and to hopefully observe how these microbes related to the arsenic and iron in our samples. Some samples were sediments collected in Cambodia and others were created by Dr Helen Downie using a pure microbial culture.
The Manchester beamteam inspecting the microscope with prinicipal beamline scientist Burkhard KaulichThe trip was very successful: using the new beamline made it remarkably easy to produce fluorescence maps which showed the locations of iron, arsenic and (by mapping nitrogen) the microbes themselves. The fluorescence map took about 12 hours to produce which meant that we started the scan at about 9 pm and returned in the morning to observe the results. Species analysis could also be achieved using a XANES scan which lasted about 8 hours.
All in all I believe we could describe the trip as a success. The new SXM beamline is likely to be a powerful tool to help understand the way that microbes interact with arsenic. This is of great importance given that arsenic poisoning (from drinking contaminated water) blights and shortens the lives of over 100 million people globally, and microbes may be central to this process.
By Dan Magnone
In October, Jon, Gina, Natalie and I travelled to Belgium for a MIND (Microbiology in Nuclear Waste Disposal) advanced course in geomicrobiology in radioactive waste disposal. The course was provided by SCK·CEN, a Belgian nuclear research centre based in the city of Mol. The course brought together researchers from over 10 MIND institutions to share […]
Recently several group members attended the 8th Actinide XAS conference (AnXAS 2017) held at The Queen’s College, the University of Oxford. AnXAS is a three day workshop showcasing speciation, techniques and facilities for radioactive materials at various synchrotron light sources. The Queen’s college is an impressive warren of grand buildings, gardens and passageways. Although there […]
As part of an on-going programme concerning rapid developments in Genomics and Bioinformatics, I recently visited the Wilkins Geomicrobiology Lab at Ohio State University for a bioinformatics training course. The Wilkins Lab is led by Dr Mike Wilkins, who actually has his roots in the Manchester Geomicrobiology group where Prof Jonathan Lloyd guided him through […]
In November Laura and I, loaded up with samples from a few folk in the geomicrobiology group, flew to California for beamtime at the Advanced Light Source synchrotron at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. We were met in Berkeley by Adriana Figueroa-Garcia, a beamline scientist from Diamond, who was kind enough to give us a […]
