Illinois Tech-Led BioCAT Wins NIH Renewal to Continue Operating Fiber Diffraction Beamline at Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source

CHICAGO-The Biophysics Collaborative Access Team (BioCAT)-led by Illinois Institute of Technology faculty Thomas Irving, Professor of Biology; Weikang Ma, Professor of Biology; and Jesse Hopkins, Professor of Physics-has received the first installment of $2.6 million of a renewal award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health to continue operating the BioCAT beamline at Sector 18-ID at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory for the next five years. This is the first renewal of BioCAT NIGMS award P30 GM138395. From 2012-2020, BioCAT was supported by a different NIGMS funding mechanism under award P41 GM103622.

BioCAT is a national user facility designed to help researchers study the structure and dynamics of biological systems in states that more closely resemble how they function in living tissue. According to BioCAT and Illinois Tech descriptions of the facility, the beamline supports techniques including fiber diffraction, micro-diffraction, and small-angle X-ray scattering for studies of muscle, connective tissue, amyloids, viruses, macromolecules in solution, and metal distribution in tissues.

These methods are especially important for understanding the "molecular machines" that power life. Many essential biological functions depend on large complexes of proteins and nucleic acids whose structures cannot easily be crystallized or frozen for atomic-resolution study. In those cases, synchrotron X-ray scattering and diffraction can reveal critical information about how these systems are organized and how they work. NIH's BioCAT project description emphasizes that the facility was built precisely to support these kinds of studies on non-crystalline biological materials.

One of BioCAT's signature strengths is the study of skeletal and cardiac muscle in both healthy and diseased states. The BioCAT beamline has developed a uniquely strong U.S. program in fiber diffraction and muscle research, with applications that include inherited heart disease and other conditions linked to mutations in muscle proteins. BioCAT's beamline description notes that 18-ID remains a state-of-the-art instrument for biological small- and wide-angle fiber diffraction and solution scattering, while Illinois Tech says the facility is among the best in the world for the kinds of studies for which it was designed.

The renewed funding continues support for a facility that has been in operation since the late 1990s and serves researchers from across the United States and around the world. Beamtime is awarded through the Advanced Photon Source General User Proposal process and is available to scientists on the basis of peer-reviewed proposals, underscoring the facility's role as a national resource for the biomedical research community.

BioCAT's scientific output reflects that impact. On its public science page, BioCAT reports that, as of June 2024, the facility and its users had produced nearly 800 articles, which had been cited more than 58,000 times, with an h-index of 114.

"This renewal affirms the importance of BioCAT as a national resource for biological and biomedical discovery," said Vice Provost for Research at Illinois Tech, Jeff Terry. "The facility gives researchers access to highly specialized X-ray scattering and diffraction capabilities that can answer questions not accessible by other methods, especially in systems such as muscle and other complex biological assemblies."

The BioCAT beamline also benefits from the recently upgraded Advanced Photon Source, which has expanded the capabilities of the resource and strengthened its ability to support cutting-edge experiments in structural biology and biophysics.

BioCAT staff are affiliated with Illinois Tech's Center for Synchrotron Radiation Research and Instrumentation, and Professors Irving and Ma are affiliated faculty of Illinois Tech's Pritzker Institute of Biomedical Science and Engineering. Illinois Tech describes BioCAT as an NIH-supported facility within its broader synchrotron research infrastructure.

For researchers seeking to understand how biological machinery works in health and disease-and how that knowledge can inform new therapies-the NIH renewal ensures that BioCAT will remain a vital national hub for discovery.

Work reported here was supported by the National Institute Of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number 2P30GM138395. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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