The samples at BioMAX beamline are very sensitive biomolecule crystals. It could, for example, be one of the many proteins you have in your body. They only last for a short time in the intense X-ray light before being damaged and needs to be placed exactly right before the researchers switch on the beam. In their masters’ project, Isak Lindhé, and Jonathan Schurmann have used methods of artificial intelligence to train the computer how to do it.
Hundreds of thousands of proteins
You have hundreds of thousands of different proteins in your body. They do everything from transporting oxygen in your blood to letting your cells take up nutrients after you’ve eaten or make your heart beat. And when things go wrong, you get prescribed medication. The pharmaceutical molecules connect to the proteins in your body to change how they work. To develop new pharmaceuticals with few side effects, the researchers, therefore, need to understand what different proteins look like in detail.
A tedious task
To get high-quality data from a sample it needs to be correctly positioned in the X-ray beam. The conventional model for finding the right position is to scan the sample in the beam to optimize the position. At MAX IV, the X-ray light is very intense, which is good because smaller crystals can be used. But at the same time, very often the sample can’t be scanned in the beam since it would be damaged long before the right position is found. The researchers, therefore, have to perform the rather tedious task of positioning it manually.