1. KINESIN ACTION CRYSTALLIZED IN TWO KEY STATES
by Lori Tamura
(Contact: hirokawa@m.u-tokyo.ac.jp)

Without infrastructure, business grinds to a halt, and the business of a cell is no exception. Cells require an internal transportation system reliable and flexible enough to accommodate both the routine movement of organelles and the dramatic choreography of mitosis. In response, nature has engineered an intracellular rail system of sorts, in which a "motor" enzyme called kinesin hauls chromosomes and other cellular freight along microtubule tracks. Disruption of this system can lead to certain neurological disorders as well as cancer. To better understand how this system works, a team of researchers from the University of Tokyo and the University of California, San Francisco, working at the ALS and Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, compared the structures of the kinesin mechanism when crystallized in two functionally critical states.

Read the full story at http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/science/sci_archive/51kinesin.html.

Publication about this research: M. Kikkawa, E.P. Sablin, Y. Okada, H. Yajima, R.J. Fletterick, N. Hirokawa, "Switch-based mechanism of kinesin motors," Nature 411, 439 (2001).

2. REMINDER: GENERAL SCIENCES PROPOSALS DUE JUNE 1
(Contact: alsproposals@lbl.gov)

The User Services Office is still accepting proposals from scientists who wish to conduct research as independent investigators in the general sciences during the running period from December 2002 to May 2003. The deadline for submissions is June 1, 2002. (This information does not apply to protein crystallography proposals, which have a separate process and schedule.) Scientists wishing to renew a previous proposal must fill in a one-page Experiment Report/Beamtime Request and submit it to the User Services Office by the June 1 deadline. The numeric rating for each proposal will be communicated to the investigator along with comments from the Proposal Study Panel, where appropriate. The cutoff rating for each beamline in the previous proposal cycle is published on the Web (see below). The following resources are available for further information:

ALS User Program Administrator

alsuser@lbl.gov

Independent investigator process

http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/quickguide/independinvest.html

Beamline information

http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/als_users_bl/datasheets.html

http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/als_users_bl/bl_table.html

Proposal Study Panel (PSP) scores

http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/quickguide/pspscores.html

3. ACTIVITY REPORT WINS INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION

The 2000 ALS Activity Report, which recently received a top-level award in a regional technical publications competion (ALSNews Vol. 195), has gone on to win an award of "Excellence" at the international level (http://www.stc.org/2002_itpc_winners.html). The competitions are sponsored by the Society for Technical Communication (STC), the primary organization dedicated to promoting the arts and sciences of technical communication worldwide. To be considered for the STC's International Technical Publications Competition, entries must first advance through local chapter and regional competitions. The international winners are selected by three-judge panels that evaluate each entry for such qualities as production, design and typography, copy editing, content and organization, and graphics. In their feedback comments, the judges called the Activity Report "a beautifully designed and well written document" and "an impressive collection of information" that "effectively shows the scientific value and breadth" of the ALS. Congratulations and thanks to the Activity Report writing/editing/production team for putting together such an exemplary publication to represent the ALS!

4. RUTH PEPE, FORMER HEAD OF USER SERVICES, RETIRES
(Contact: GFKrebs@lbl.gov)

Ruth Pepe, who for many years served as head of the ALS User Services Office, is retiring this spring. In the last year, Ruth's responsibilities grew as she took on the role of ALS Division Administrator, assisting Director Daniel Chemla with the supervision and hiring of all administrative staff in the division. "Ruth has done an outstanding job during the seven years she has been at the ALS and I will personally miss her intelligence, energy, and creativity," Daniel said. "I would also like to congratulate Ruth on the marvelous staff she has assembled; it is why we can all look forward to a smooth transition." The staffing hole created by Ruth's retirement will quickly propagate through the ranks of the User Services Office: Bernie Dixon, who has worked in the User Services Office for five years (as Office Manager for the last year), will step in to fill Ruth's Division Administrator position, and Jeremy Coyne will fill Bernie's former role as the new User Program Administrator. A new job ad to fill the hole that Jeremy is leaving will be posted soon. Congratulations to Bernie and Jeremy and many thanks and best wishes to Ruth for a healthy and happy retirement.

5. WHO'S IN TOWN: A SAMPLING OF ALS USERS

Following are some of the experimenters who will be collecting data during the next two weeks at the ALS.

Beamline 1.4.3
Simon Clark (Berkeley Lab)
Felicia Betancourt (Berkeley Lab)

Beamline 5.0
Clifford Mol, Doug Dougan (Syrrx, Inc.)

Beamline 6.1.2
Gerd Schneider (Berkeley Lab)
Juergen Thieme (Univ. of Goettingen, Germany)

Beamline 7.0.1
Marjorie Olmstead (Univ. of Washington)
Adam Hitchcock (McMaster Univ., Canada)

Beamline 7.3.1.1
Z.Q. Qiu (Univ. of California, Berkeley)
Simone Anders (IBM Almaden Research Center)

Beamline 7.3.3
Greg Hura (Berkeley Lab)

Beamline 8.0.1
Satish Myneni (Princeton Univ.)
Anders Nilsson (Stanford Univ.)
Glenn Waychunas (Berkeley Lab)

Beamline 9.3.1
Heinz Frei (Berkeley Lab)
David McKeown (Catholic Univ. of America)

Beamline 9.3.2
Glenn Waychunas (Berkeley Lab)
Frank Ogletree (Berkeley Lab)

Beamline 10.0.1
John West (Daresbury Laboratory, UK)
Ron Phaneuf (Univ. of Nevada, Reno)

Beamline 10.3.1
Peter Weber (Univ. of California, Berkeley)

Beamline 10.3.2
Donald Sparks, Markus Grafe, David McNear (Univ. of Delaware)

6. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(Contact: JPHarkins@lbl.gov)

The ALS is currently in a planned shutdown for installations and maintenance. User operations are scheduled to resume at 12:00 a.m. on Thursday, May 9, 2002.

Long-term and weekly operations schedules are available on the Web (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/accelinfo.html). Requests for special operations use of the "scrubbing" shift should be sent to Bruce Samuelson (BCSamuelson@lbl.gov, x4738) by 1:00 p.m. Friday. The Accelerator Status Hotline at (510) 486-6766 (ext. 6766 from Lab phones) features a recorded message giving up-to-date information on the operational status of the accelerator.

LBNL/PUB-863
Editors: lstamura@lbl.gov, alrobinson@lbl.gov, amgreiner@lbl.gov

This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC03-76SF00098.