New article

My last publication while working at the ESRF is finally out:

J. Synchrotron Rad. (2013). 20  [ doi:10.1107/S0909049512049114 ] A survey of global radiation damage to 15 different protein crystal types at room temperature: a new decay model R. M. Ferraz Leal, G. Burenkov, S. Russi and A. N. Popov Synopsis: A systematic study of the sensitivity to radiation damage of crystals held at room temperature for a large set of model macromolecular structures is presented. Online 6 December 2012

Abstract: The radiation damage rates to crystals of 15 model macromolecular structures were studied using an automated radiation sensitivity characterization procedure. The diffracted intensity variation with dose is described by a two-parameter model. This model includes a strong resolution-independent decay specific to room-temperature measurements along with a linear increase in overall Debye-Waller factors. An equivalent representation of sensitivity via a single parameter, normalized half-dose, is introduced. This parameter varies by an order of magnitude between the different structures studied. The data show a correlation of crystal radiation sensitivity with crystal solvent content but no dose-rate dependency was detected in the range 0.05-300 kGy s^-1. The results of the crystal characterization are suitable for either optimal planning of room-temperature data collection or in situ crystallization plate screening experiments.

Keywords: radiation damage; room temperature; X-ray diffraction; data collection.