29 A dedicated team


A key asset for Diamond is the dedicated, close-knit industry team who support this research. Malcolm emphasises how “nice it is to be able to pick up the phone and speak to a friendly person who is both a specialist in their field and has the experience of working with industry so can help with any challenges.”


Looking ahead


During his time at Diamond, Malcolm has seen three CEOs: Gerd Materlik, who was there from the start of Diamond and set out a clear plan for the operational deployment of Diamond; Andrew Harrison, who was a great advocate of Diamond worldwide for both users and at the cabinet level; and the current CEO, Gianluigi Botton, who has done a great job in plans to take Diamond to the next level and deploy Diamond II. He has been amazing at engaging with both staff and users to bring them on this exciting journey.


Malcolm Skingle with members of DISCo on his last day as Chair. Advancements in technology


As a former pharmacologist, Malcolm remembers using laborious methods like organ baths to see how compounds added to a piece of ‘live tissue’ would cause it to contract or relax and how this activity could then be ‘blocked’ using an antagonist. “Nowadays,” he says, “things have moved on - the introduction of robotics, automation, state-of-the-art analytics, and the packaging of the data has completely changed how experiments are run at Diamond. Users can now optimise both the time and outputs of their experiments.”


“I have great faith in Diamond and its work with industry,” added Malcolm. “For industry to be still engaged in DISCo and Diamond after 20 years, we must be doing something right. I will be keeping a close eye on developments at Diamond both as a trustee of the Rosalind Franklin Institute and through personal interest and I am excited for the next stage of its development. I’d encourage anyone, even if just exploring their options, to get in touch with the industry team and have a chat to see how they can help. The expertise in Diamond’s industry team is second to none and with an open attitude and advanced capabilities, pretty much anything is possible!”


In its seventeenth year of experiments, Diamond is now operating with 33 beamlines and eight electron microscopes dedicated for experiments. A further five instruments are available for experiment support and sample preparation. Ten of the instruments specialise in life sciences and make up eBIC (electron Bio-Imaging Centre), with two provided for industry use in partnership with Thermo Fisher Scientific. Two of the electron microscopes are dedicated to advanced materials research and are supplied by Johnson Matthey and the University of Oxford. These, along with a further instrument for sample preparation, form ePSIC (electron Physical Science Imaging Centre) and are operated under strategic collaboration agreements to provide for substantial dedicated peer reviewed user access.


Both eBIC and ePSIC are next to the Hard X-ray Nanoprobe beamline (I14). Along with eBIC and ePSIC, the UK X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) Hub, the Membrane Protein Laboratory (MPL), the XChem fragrment screening facility, the LabSAXS facility and the Active Materials Laboratory make up the complementary integrated facilities available at Diamond.


For academic research, Diamond instruments (beamlines and microscopes) are free at the point of access through peer review. For proprietary research, access can be secured through Diamond’s industry team.


Malcolm in Diamond’s Experimental Hall. The evolving ecosystem


The accelerated advancements around Diamond and the wider Harwell have provided an evolving ecosystem; for example, the introduction of complementary approaches such as cryo-EM and Fragment Screening for drug discovery, along with a range of complementary services for crystallisation, work hand in hand with other scientific facilities all co-located on one campus. “The diversity of capabilities at Diamond and Harwell is superb and works across sectors perfectly,” Malcolm added.


Commitment to industry engagement


Under the scope of DISCo, Elizabeth Shotton, Head of Industrial Liaison at Diamond and her industry team have been very open to trying different ways of working to align with industry needs, an approach that has been key to Diamond’s success. The clear commitment from industry for a facility like Diamond also sends a clear signal to global companies that the UK is serious about business, which acts as an anchor for good science. The yearly increases in user numbers and the high number of repeat customers from industry, is a testament to the efficient processes that they have evolved over many years.


Diamond II funding announced in September 2023 amounted to £519.4 million from UK Govt through UK research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Wellcome Trust. This will support a major upgrade of the machine’s storage ring to a low emittance multibend achromat lattice, which together with an increase in energy from 3 to 3.5 GeV will enhance the brightness in the hard X-ray region of the spectrum by up to a factor 70. The booster ring will also be upgraded to allow injection in the storage ring.


Three new flagship beamlines will be introduced, along with upgrades to existing beamlines to enable the use of higher performance insertion device sources and several critical beamline upgrades that are required in order the beamlines to remain operational in Diamond-II.


Investments will also be made into core software, controls and computing to manage the greater quantities of data that will be produced by the upgraded facility, as well as extensions to buildings and infrastructure including office and lab space.


To find out more, look at how industry is applying Diamond across different sectors to their research – https://www.diamond.ac.uk/industry/Case-Studies.html


Get in touch - https://www.diamond.ac.uk/industry.html Link to enquiries form: - https://www.rcsb.org/


1. https://www.rcsb.org/


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