There’s a new, big building site in my hometown of Hamburg, Germany: the European X-ray Free-Electron Laser, or European XFEL, a mega science facility funded by 16 European countries to be commissioned in 2014. Actually, it’s three building sites, two in Hamburg and one in the neighbouring state of Schleswig-Holstein – the whole thing will be 3.4 km long (1.6 km for the accelerator itself), mostly underground, and look really cool:
Electromagnetic fields accelerate electrons in superconducting resonators
Copyright: European XFEL (with permission)
The mega-gadget is going to produce x-ray flashes 100 trillionth of a second long. This will make it possible – and here comes the really cool part – to basically ‘film’ chemical reactions. (Can you imagine how many of those 100 trillionth seconds just passed since you started reading this sentence? Not to mention how many chemical reactions took place.) Something else this thing can be used for once it’s done is the study of extreme states – we’re talking Star-Trek type plasma here!
But, as a biologist, what I find most exciting is the prospect of investigating the structure of individual biomolecules. This also depends on the speed of the x-ray flashes produced: the image of a biomolecule has to be recorded extremely quickly, because (take a guess) the molecule disintegrates after a short amount of time under intense radiation. The difference between the European XFEL and the methods used today, which Stephen has also described previously, is that ‘conventional’ radiation sources are too ‘weak’ to allow single molecules to be studied.
From the website: “[…] Instead, molecules have to be grown into crystals in which the molecules are aligned in regular order. These crystals can then be used for a ‘group picture’ in which the individual images reinforce one another enough to create a usable result. The problem is that crystallization is not possible for many relevant biological substances – many molecules, molecule complexes, cell membranes and whole cells are thus left out. […] The European XFEL offers completely novel possibilities to create images of larger biological structures, such as single viruses, in atomic detail. Special emphasis will be put on viruses that cannot be crystallized – for instance the viruses responsible for AIDS and herpes.”
XFEL sites are also being built in Japan and the US. The site in Hamburg will be the last to be completed, but, in contrast to the other two, it will use superconducting technology, allowing for a higher quality electron beam that can produce the x-ray flashes at such an incredible speed. As the website proudly announces: “Certain experiments will thus only be possible at the European XFEL, and others can be carried out much faster.”
Finally, I love the statement on the research benefits: “The unique research opportunities at the European XFEL will attract top-level scientists from all over the world. This will bring very different scientific disciplines together, which will challenge and foster one another. Experience shows that such an interplay stimulates a multitude of ideas.”
I seem to develop a taste for these mega-gadgets.
Nice summary Steffi – it certainly looks Star Trekky. I can’t yet get my head around how they’re going to figure out structures from a single shot of a molecule. As they say in their blurb, there are some significant challenges ahead.
It’ll be cool for biologists to take this baby for a test run and find out what it can do….and agreed this seems Trekky approved. How much will this cost again?
I went to a talk last year that was looking into similar developments in collaboration with Stanford Light Source. A major issue is the amount of data needed to know a 3D structure if the orientation is unknown. The issue plagues SAXS experiments and results in being able to determine the molecular envelope, but not individual atoms. It should be fun to watch how the instrumentation and research progress that hopefully will yield real time atom positions.
Stephen: I’m just starting to dig into how this works, but there is some information on FLASH (Free-Electron Laser in Hamburg), the prototype at the DESY, and an early press release from Stanford (for some diversity in my links) on preliminary experiments. Ted, I’m just finding out a bit about who collaborates with whom, but I guess that’s the connection for the talk you went to.
I found a couple of recent papers that might explain the how a bit more, but I haven’t read them (I should be packing lunches). It’s all in the data processing, from what I can gather, and it seems that making this work will entirely depend on scientists from all over the world sticking their heads together and working it out – I love that aspect of it.
Sarbjit, the information on the price varies depending on how up to date it is, but I want to say 1 billion Euro for the price tag is the most consistent number I’ve seen. Interestingly, there will also be in-kind contributions from shareholders, although there are no details on this up yet.