Important Information
APS has NEW Procedures for Users:
Returning to APS!
Our Mission
BioCARS is a national user facility for frontier synchrotron-based dynamics studies in structural biology at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), Argonne National Lab. 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 the 48-bunch mode of the APS storage ring, BioCARS 14-ID beamline provides high polychromatic flux, with ~5.8 × 109 photons per 250ps pulse delivered to the sample. Short X-ray pulses are synchronized with ps or ns laser pulses for conducting pump-probe time-resolved experiments. The overall goal of time-resolved experiments at BioCARS is to understand basic biological processes in structural and dynamics terms, on time scales from 250 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 acknowledgment for publications resulting from use of BioCARS facility can be found here.
APS-U and BioCARS
Click here to read more about APS-U and BioCARS
Quick Links
Recent Publications
Worth, E., Stadnytskyi, V., Cho, H. S., Schotte, F., and Anfinrud, P.
Rapid and precise temperature control of samples flowing through a capillary from −20 to 130 °C.
Rev. Sci. Instrum. 97, 025205 (2026)
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/rsi/article/97/2/025205/3378575/Rapid-and-precise-temperature-control-of-samples
Time-Resolved Mn Kα Emission Reveals Early Redox Dynamics in the S3 to S0 transition of the Photosystem II Kok Cycle.
Journal of Biological Chemistry 111215 (2026).
Linse, J.-B., Cho, H. S., Schotte, F., Anfinrud, P. A., and Hub, J. S.
Depletion of the Protein Hydration Shell with Increasing Temperature Observed by Small-Angle X-ray Scattering and Molecular Simulations.
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 147, 47117–47125 (2025)
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.5c13497
Hekstra, D. R., Wang, H. K., Klureza, M. A., Greisman, J. B., and Dalton, K. M.
Sensitive detection of structural dynamics using a statistical framework for comparative crystallography.
Science Advances 11, eadj2921 (2025)
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj2921
Lee, C., Chan, A. M., Nijhawan, A. K., Ho, M. B., Kosheleva, I., and Chen, L. X.
(2025) Millisecond phase transition kinetics of lyotropic liquid crystalline nanoparticles observed by time-resolved small angle x-ray solution scattering.
Chemphyschem e202401072.
https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cphc.202401072
Science Highlights
See also: APS Science Highlights
Laue-DIALS: Open-source software for polychromatic x-ray diffraction data
Hewitt, R. A., Dalton, K. M., Mendez, D. A., Wang, H. K., Klureza, M. A., Brookner, D. E., Greisman, J. B., McDonagh, D., Šrajer, V., Sauter, N. K., Brewster, A. S., and Hekstra, D. R. (2024) Structural Dynamics 11, 054701.
Structural dynamics of protein-protein association involved in the light-induced transition of Avena sativa LOV2 protein
Kim, C., Yun, S. R., Lee, S. J., Kim, S. O., Lee, H., Choi, J., Kim, J. G., Kim, T. W., You, S., Kosheleva, I., Noh, T., Baek, J., and Ihee, H. (2024) Nat Commun 15, 6991
Perturbative diffraction methods resolve a conformational switch that facilitates a two-step enzymatic mechanism
Greisman, J. B., Dalton, K. M., Brookner, D. E., Klureza, M. A., Sheehan, C. J., Kim, I.-S., Henning, R. W., Russi, S., and Hekstra, D. R. (2024) PNAS 121, e2313192121
New BioCARS Zoom Seminar video is available
Analyzing TR-WAXS Data and Modeling Jα Helix Unfolding Using AlphaFold Leonardo Monrroy, Uppsala University, Sweden
New x-ray technology captures proteins in motion
Researchers at UChicago, Argonne, and Harvard perfected a new technique for creating experimental movies of proteins in action.
