BioCARS

Dedicated to state-of-the-art time-resolved research in biological and physical sciences.

Micro-spectrophotometer

BioCARS micro-spectrophotometer for on-line and off-line recording of optical absorption spectra of crystals, to aid X-ray diffraction studies.

Laser Lab

BioCARS ps laser system: Spectra Physics, Ti:Sapphire Spitfire Pro 5 (780nm, 2ps, 1kHz, 5mJ/pulse) and TOPAS OP

14-ID Beamline

BioCARS 14 ID beamline provides necessary infrastructure for conducting state-of-the-art time-resolved X-ray scattering studies with 100ps time resolution, both in biology and in physical sciences.

Laue X-ray Diffraction Pattern

Laue diffraction pattern collected at 14 ID from a Scapharca Inequivalvis tetrameric hemoglobin crystal, as part of 100ps time-resolved studies.

Important Information

Effective July 17, 2023 access to all APS user platforms will require an Argonne domain account log-in:
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For the latest Argonne user site access information, please visit:
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For the latest University of Chicago health precautions, campus updates, and CDC guidelines, please visit:
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Our Mission

The mission of BioCARS is to provide state-of-the-art X-ray facility, scientific and technical expertise and support to enable users to study the dynamic properties of biological macromolecules by X-ray scattering techniques: time-resolved diffraction and solution scattering (SAXS/WAXS). In hybrid mode of the APS storage ring, BioCARS 14-ID beamline provides high polychromatic flux, with ~3 × 1010 photons per 100ps pulse delivered to the sample. Short X-ray pulses are synchronized with ps or ns laser pulses for conducting pump-probe time-resolved experiments. In recent years we developed and implemented these technologies that are now offered as standard methods to BioCARS users:

  • Serial Laue micro-crystallography using fixed targets and crystal injectors to facilitate studies of irreversible reactions while minimizing sample consumption.
  • Electric-field jump as a method for reaction initiation and studies of protein dynamics.
  • Novel temperature-controlled sample cells for temperature-jump solution scattering studies.
  • Sample-minimizing co-flow cell for time-resolved solution scattering studies of irreversible reactions.

The overall goal of time-resolved experiments at BioCARS is to understand basic biological processes in structural and dynamics terms, on time scales from 100 picoseconds to seconds.

Use of BioCARS is supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under grant number P41 GM118217. Funding acknowledgement  for publications resulting from use of BioCARS facility can be found here.

APS-U and BioCARS

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Recent Publications

Chan, A. M., Nijhawan, A. K., Hsu, D. J., Leshchev, D., Rimmerman, D., Kosheleva, I., Kohlstedt, K. L., and Chen, L. X.
The Role of Transient Intermediate Structures in the Unfolding of the Trp-Cage Fast-Folding Protein: Generating Ensembles from Time-Resolved X-ray Solution Scattering with Genetic Algorithms.
J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 14, 1133–1139 (2023).
(https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c03680)

Dalton, K. M., Greisman, J. B., and Hekstra, D. R.
A unifying Bayesian framework for merging X-ray diffraction data.
Nat Commun
13, 7764 (2022).
(https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35280-8)

Wilamowski, M., Sherrell, D. A., Kim, Y., Lavens, A., Henning, R. W., Lazarski, K., Shigemoto, A., Endres, M., Maltseva, N., Babnigg, G., Burdette, S. C., Srajer, V., and Joachimiak, A.
Time-resolved β-lactam cleavage by L1 metallo-β-lactamase.
Nat Commun 13, 7379 (2022).
(https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35029-3)

Lee, S. J., Kim, T. W., Kim, J. G., Yang, C., Yun, S. R., Kim, C., Ren, Z., Kumarapperuma, I., Kuk, J., Moffat, K., Yang, X., and Ihee, H. (2022)
Light-induced protein structural dynamics in bacteriophytochrome revealed by time-resolved x-ray solution scattering.
Science Advances 8, eabm6278.
(https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm6278)

Moreno-Chicano et al. (2022)
Complementarity of neutron, XFEL and synchrotron crystallography for defining the structures of metalloenzymes at room temperature.
IUCrJ 9, 610–624.
(https://journals.iucr.org/m/issues/2022/05/00/rs5001/)

Latest News and Highlights

See also: APS Science Highlights

BioCARS Starts a New Zoom Seminar Series

During these times of COVID-19 restrictions, when most BioCARS users cannot travel to BioCARS to conduct their experiments, we deemed it essential to continue regular communications and scientific discussions with our user community. We decided to start BioCARS Zoom...