The Cryobench laboratory (located on beamline ID29) is dedicated to performing UV-visible spectroscopy on macromolecular crystals.

The central device of the lab is a microspectrophotometer that allows to measure absorption, fluorescence or Raman spectra from nanovolumic samples such as protein crystals.

The lab is being run in the context of a close collaboration between the ESRF and the Institut de Biologie Structurale (IBS), and is one of the platforms  of the Partnership for Structural Biology (PSB).

The Cryobench laboratory allows to correlate structure, function and mechanism in crystalline macromolecules. We can monitor absorption, fluorescence  or Raman changes in crystals in order to follow, for example, the redox state of a metalloprotein, the onset of X-ray radiation damage, or the binding of a ligand. These questions gain importance in today’s protein crystallography.

Most of the projects developed at the Cryobench concern the field of “kinetic protein crystallography”, that is the study of enzyme mechanisms and protein dynamics using a combined crystallography/spectroscopy approach. As many proteins are fully functional in the crystalline state, we have developed a number of experimental strategies to trigger reactions in crystals, accumulate intermediate states and trap them in order to solve their high-resolution X-ray structure.

The Cryobench lab is also a test bench for developments that can be later installed on MX beamlines. For example, this is the case for the online microspectrophotometer used on ID14 and for on-line visualisation of protein crystals using a UV laser (Vernède et al., Acta Cryst. D (2006)).

Reference publications for the Cryobench lab have been published in Journal of Applied Crystallography:
- Bourgeois et al. (2002) "A microspectrophotometer for absorption and fluorescence studies of protein crystals ",
- Royant et al. (2007) "Advances in spectroscopic methods for biological crystals. 1. Fluorescence lifetime measurements",
- Carpentier et al. (2007) "Advances in spectroscopic methods for biological crystals. 2. Raman spectroscopy".

Beamtime Applications

Applying for Cryobench Beamtime is currently made in three steps:

1: Send a ~1 page proposal (pdf format) to:
2: Provide a range of suitable dates to the lab responsible:
3: Follow the administrative procedures here.

Absorption, fluorescence or Raman measurements in crystals and/or in solution at temperatures from 100K to room temperature. Fluorescence lifetime  measurements are also possible with the TCSPC technique.

A number of lasers, lamps, detectors, cooling devices are available.