News

At the General Assembly in May, the application of the Canadian Light Source as a partner of LEAPS was unanimously accepted.

“We are very much looking forward to the mutual benefits a close partnership will generate”, says Caterina Biscari, Chair of LEAPS. “This partnership, building on already on-going collaborations, will strengthen future technological and scientific developments benefiting the light source user community and the global society.”

“I am proud to see CLS become the first non-European partner in the LEAPS initiative, which I believe will become the preeminent collaboration of lightsource facilities and model for future worldwide collaborations. We are eager to share our insights and seek collaborations with the consortium,” says CLS CEO Robert Lamb.

This new partnership is a continuation of the Canadian Light Source synchrotron’s strong commitment to international cooperation, as part of the program review and scientific advisory committees for the SESAME project in Jordan, and as a foundation partner in Lightsources for Africa, the Americas, Asia and Middle East Project (LAAAMP) and a range of projects with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).  The LEAPS partnership will enable the CLS and European members to work closely on a broad range of cutting-edge developments in lightsource technology, enhancing the value of these essential scientific facilities worldwide. As the CLS works on the design of a next-generation facility for the Canadian community, this insight will be invaluable. 

Research on the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the current outbreak of COVID-19, is a global endeavour. Several facilities within our collaboration have started research on SARS-CoV-2 virus and opened calls for rapid access to dedicated beamtime. Find them here!

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A list of publications on SARS-CoV-2 by LEAPS members and other synchrotron and FEL facilities around the globe can be found at lightsources.org. This list is updated on a daily basis. Lightsources.org is the result of the collaboration between communicators from light source facilities around the world.

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Rapid access for COVID-19 research

Scientists can apply for rapid access at the following facilities (only member facilities of LEAPS are mentioned here). Please find current information about the facilities at their own websites through Consortium in our top menu.

European XFEL call for expressions of interest in COVID-19 related research (deadline 17 June 2020)
https://www.xfel.eu/users/covid_19_expressions_of_interest/index_eng.html

ESRF in France provides rapid access to some of their instruments:
http://www.esrf.eu/home/news/general/content-news/general/covid-19-scientific-research.html

FELIX in the Netherlands offers rapid access route:
https://www.ru.nl/felix/vm/rapid-access-corona-related-research-felix/

MAX IV Laboratory in Sweden provides rapid access:
https://www.maxiv.lu.se/news/rapid-access-call-for-proposals-sars-cov-2-and-urgent-e-g-health-related-research/

Soleil in France provides rapid access:
https://www.synchrotron-soleil.fr/en/news/covid-19-research-synchrotron-soleil-and-rapid-access

DESY in Germany offers rapid access to PETRA III beamlines:
https://photon-science.desy.de/users_area/fast_track_access_for_covid_19/index_eng.html

BESSY II at HZB in Germany provides fast track access to their instruments for issues of highest relevance:
https://www.helmholtz-berlin.de/forschung/oe/np/gmx/index_en.html
Contact: Manfred Weiss, team leader of MX joint research group

ALBA Synchrotron in Spain offers a COVID-19 RAPID ACCESS on all beamlines:
https://www.albasynchrotron.es/en/covid-19-information/

SOLARIS Synchrotron in Poland gives access to its Cryo-Electron Microscope thanks to a CERIC-ERIC initiative: https://www.ceric-eric.eu/2020/03/10/covid-19-fast-track-access/

Swiss Light Source and Swiss FEL at PSI in Switzerland offer priority access to combating COVID-19:
https://www.psi.ch/en/psd/covid-19

Diamond Light Source in the United Kingdom opened also a call for rapid access:
https://www.diamond.ac.uk/Users.html

Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste in Italy opens to remote access following beamlines: XRD1, XRD2, SISSI-BIO and MCX:
https://www.elettra.trieste.it/userarea/covid-19-virus-elettra-rapid-access-proposals.html

Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste is committed to combating the global pandemic emergency caused by the COVID-19 viral infection, relying on its excellent research infrastructures and a team of expert scientists. Elettra is already  Partner in one of the research projects recently funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 program on coronavirus: EXSCALATE4CoV (E4C) https://www.exscalate.eu/en/projects.html#Covid-19. The project, coordinated by the pharmaceutical company Dompè with partners from seven European Countries, focuses on the identification of novel small molecule drugs effective against SARS-CoV-2. The main project activity is based on EXSCALATE (https://www.exscalate.eu/en), a supercomputing platform that uses a chemical library of over 500 billion molecules. Specifically, it aims at identifying candidate molecules for drugs, help design biochemical and cellular screening tests, identify key genomic regions in COVID-19 and more. The fundamental contribution of Elettra is to experimentally test the simulation results and verify the information on the molecular interactions between viral proteins and small molecules obtained by “in-silico” calculations. The 3D structure of proteins and details on the interaction sites will be verified through X-ray diffraction measurements and molecular reconstruction techniques. The activities at Elettra will be carried out at the Protein Facility and at the XRD2 and XRD1 beamlines. The project will expand the collaborations and exchange of know-how among teams working on the topic worldwide, thus collectively pursuing the unique and global goal of exterminating SARS-CoV-2. The long-term impact of the E4C project on the pharmaceutical R&D capacity include building up a hub involving reference institutions specialized in studies of infectious diseases, develop supercomputing methods for molecular simulations and structural biology, and improve our capability to face future emergencies.