Early history and general introduction

A comparison of the intensity of a rotating anode source with the DESY synchrotron (section 5.6.2) by Harmsen et al (1976) was favourable enough to encourage data collection apparatus to be established on DORIS by Harmsen and Rosenbaum (described in Rosenbaum and Holmes (1980) and Rosenbaum (1980)). This workstation (X-11) accommodated small angle diffraction as well as protein crystallography. 

Stimulated by the early SPEAR results, some preliminary experiments were performed at Daresbury in 1976 shortly before the NINA synchro- 

On DCI, Lemonnier et al (1978) established a focussing monochromator camera in 1976 (section 5.6.3.1) on which oscillation camera data sets were collected (e.g. from single crystals of tyrosyl t-RNA synthetase (Monteilhet et al 1978) or resolution and radiation damage tests were conducted (e.g. 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase (Helliwell 1979)). 

These experiments confirmed reduced exposure times and reductions in the relative amount of radiation damage over that on a conventional source (Fourme 1978, 1979 Kahn et al 1982a). In the Soviet Union on the VEPP-3 ring some preliminary data were collected by Mokulskaya (1981) using an electronic area detector in an attempt to optimise the anomalous dispersion of a platinum derivative of pea lectin crystals. 

In any discussion of early results involving protein crystallography at a synchrotron source, full acknowledgement should be given to the important developments made by small angle diffractionists in studies with SR of muscle well before protein crystallographers. In particular, Rosenbaum et al (1971) published the first work on the use of SR for X-ray diffraction in their studies on muscle. 

---