Open science yields broad-spectrum coronavirus antiviral

Open science yields broad-spectrum coronavirus antiviral

A new broad-spectrum coronavirus antiviral, ASAP-0017445, has been nominated as a pre-clinical drug candidate by the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi).

The candidate is the first coronavirus antiviral developed through crowdsourcing and open-science, and the first with its origins in artificial intelligence (AI). The candidate is a result of research from the COVID Moonshot initiative which originated at Diamond Light Source. 

It is a main protease inhibitor that shows promising activity against SARS-Cov2 and other viruses of the same family, including other viruses of pandemic potential such as MERSCoV – hence its qualification as broad-spectrum. The compound was designed and developed by the open-science research initiative COVID Moonshot and its sister organisation, the AI-driven Structure-enabled Antiviral Platform (ASAP) consortium. 

“Our goal is to deliver an effective and affordable antiviral medicine that would be accessible to everyone if and when the next coronavirus pandemic strikes,” said Annette von Delft, Head of Anti-Infectives at the Centre of Medicines Discovery, University of Oxford, and partner of the Moonshot initiative. 

The COVID Moonshot was a spontaneous global collaboration that started in March 2020, triggered by data from Diamond’s XChem platform for fragment screening. Researchers around the world submitted more than 18,000 molecule designs to inhibit the main protease of SARS-CoV-2. 

The detailed structures were made openly available, ensuring that every stage of the discovery process could be built upon by the global research community. This commitment to transparency and open data laid the foundation for the optimisation of ASAP-0017445. 

Diamond’s contribution highlights the importance of advanced research infrastructure in accelerating drug discovery. By combining crystallography, computational modelling, and global crowdsourced design, the Moonshot demonstrated how open collaboration can deliver a drug candidate intended to be direct-to-generic and globally accessible. 

The structure of ASAP-0017445 was publicly disclosed in March 2025. All the data generated during its development, including the structure data of the more than 2,000 compounds submitted during the crowdsourcing phase, are publicly available. Other researchers can build on this unprecedented dataset for drug discovery for their own research.

Read more on Diamond website

A New Magnetic State for the AI Era: Demonstrating “Alternating Magnetism” in Ruthenium Dioxide Thin Films

A New Magnetic State for the AI Era: Demonstrating “Alternating Magnetism” in Ruthenium Dioxide Thin Films

—Toward the Development of High-Speed, High-Density Memory for AI and Data Centers—

Background and Challenges
Ruthenium dioxide (RuO₂) has long been regarded as a promising candidate for exhibiting “altermagnetism,” the so-called third type of magnetism. Conventional ferromagnets can be easily written with external magnetic fields, but stray fields cause recording errors, posing a fundamental obstacle to high-density memory. Antiferromagnets are resistant to external disturbances such as stray fields; however, because atomic spins (N–S poles) cancel each other out, electrical readout is extremely challenging.

This created the demand for a new class of magnetic material that combines the best of both worlds—robustness against disturbances while still enabling electrical readout and, potentially, future rewriting. Yet, worldwide experimental results on RuO₂’s altermagnetism have been inconsistent, and the lack of high-quality thin films with uniform crystal orientation prevented definitive demonstration.

Key Achievements
A collaborative research team from NIMS, the University of Tokyo, Kyoto Institute of Technology, and Tohoku University succeeded in fabricating single-variant RuO₂ thin films with aligned crystal orientation on sapphire substrates. By optimizing substrate choice and growth conditions, the team clarified the mechanism that determines orientation.

Using X-ray magnetic linear dichroism (XMLD) measurements at the Photon Factory synchrotron facility of KEK, the researchers identified both the magnetic order—where total magnetization (N–S poles) cancels out—and the spin orientation. They further observed spin-split magnetoresistance, a phenomenon in which electrical resistance changes depending on spin orientation, thereby confirming electronic differences in spin states by electrical means.

Read more on the KEK website

Image: Conceptual illustration of altermagnetism in single-variant RuO₂ thin films, showing XMLD signals and spin orientations

Using nanotechnology to target crop-munching pests

Using nanotechnology to target crop-munching pests

A bane of farmers’ existence, it’s estimated that plant-eating pests are responsible for the loss of up to 40 per cent of pre-harvest yields globally. But a new generation of crop treatments that target only “bad” bugs could mean big gains for the Canadian agriculture sector, improving pest management tools in an industry that in 2024 generated over $142 billion. 

Dr. Justin Pahara and his team at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Lethbridge Research and Development Centre are designing new screening methods to learn whether current crop treatments are effective. Their end goal, however, is to develop a method for using nanotechnology to deliver specific chemicals into pests based on their unique DNA – without harming helpful insects.

For example, through methods developed and tested at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, the researchers found that lygus bugs contain regions of enriched minerals pointing to certain proteins that could one day be targeted with tailored agents to prevent them from eating crops. The lygus bug is a common agriculture pest that feeds on many crops, including canola. Pahara and his team’s innovative methods are published in the Canadian Journal of Chemistry.

“We all need food, and if farmers cannot grow their products efficiently and make a living out of it, it’s a problem,” says Pahara. “We need new tools for pest management. Insects are becoming more tolerant to chemicals in the same way antibiotic resistance works in humans.”

Developing targeted pest treatments would also make “carpet bombing” insects with harmful pesticides a thing of the past.

“The ‘spray-and-pray’ approach ends up also killing beneficial bugs such as pollinators, and predatory insects like spiders, wasps, and beetles that help maintain a healthy ecosystem,” says Pahara.

The first step was to study how pesticides get into pests in the first place, how the nanomaterials get into their bodies and where the substances accumulate, information that will help design better solutions.

Pahara and his team used the BioXAS beamline at the CLS to create X-ray images of cutworms and lygus bugs, showing what chemicals were present in the insects and where.

Read more on CLS website

European XFEL receives new electron source

European XFEL receives new electron source

The European XFEL, the world’s largest X-ray laser, is taking another leap forward. On 17 September, a brand-new electron source, known as “GUN5”, was delivered to Hamburg after years of development and rigorous testing at DESY’s Photo Injector Test Facility (PITZ) in Zeuthen. During the current extended maintenance period, the source is being installed in the accelerator’s injector – a critical upgrade that will directly enhance the laser’s experimental capabilities.

“The next generation of electron source for our accelerator is crucial because it enables higher stability and efficiency, directly advancing accelerator performance, scientific discovery, and underlining European XFEL’s role as a global leading research facility,” says Thomas Feurer, Director and Chairman of the Management Board of European XFEL, underlining the importance of this component. The future provision of even brighter, faster and more stable X-ray flashes by the European XFEL from the beginning of 2026 will enable scientists from all over the world to study matter at the atomic level even better – from the dynamics of chemical reactions and the behaviour of quantum materials to the structures of viruses or biomolecules. “With the modernised accelerator, European XFEL will continue to push the boundaries of science and technology and offer researchers unprecedented opportunities to explore the building blocks of life and our world,” states Feurer.

For a free-electron laser to work, one factor is key: the density of electrons in each accelerated bunch. The denser the bunch, the more efficiently it can interact with the self-generated X-ray light in the undulator, creating the ultrashort, brilliant flashes of light that make the European XFEL unique.

Remarkably, the crucial parameters are set within the very first 30 centimetres of acceleration – a tiny section that ultimately determines the success of experiments taking place over three kilometres away at the facility in Schenefeld.

Developing reliable and powerful electron sources – called “guns” – has therefore been essential to building and operating free-electron lasers. At European XFEL and its sister facility FLASH, both based on superconducting accelerator technology, these sources have been a cornerstone since the 1990s.

Inside an XFEL gun, an intense laser beam frees electrons from a specially coated metal surface, the cathode, via the photoelectric effect. These electrons are then rapidly accelerated by strong radio frequency fields in a copper cavity. The process has to happen in fractions of a second: if electrons spread out too much, the bunch density is lost. The rapid acceleration process benefits from a relativistic effect that limits the repulsion between the electrons. This allows the researchers to keep the electron bunches very compact and therefore the charge density very high.

The development of the sources began in the 1990s, together with research into superconducting accelerator technology, when DESY decided to build a free-electron X-ray laser. The new generation, GUN5, builds on these decades of expertise at PITZ in Zeuthen and DESY in Hamburg. While the fourth generation (GUN4) has been in use since the start of European XFEL operations in 2017, plans for improvements were already under discussion during commissioning. “Out of these discussions came the fifth generation, with a refined shape, integrated field probes, enhanced cooling, improved mechanics for swapping cathodes, and a double input window. These advancements allow the gun to be more stable and reliable in the future,” says Frank Stephan, leader of PITZ.

Read more on European XFEL website

Image: The next generation of electron source was delivered to the injector building of the European XFEL on the DESY campus. It enables higher stability and efficiency, directly advancing accelerator performance.

Credit: European XFEL, Sven Kamin

Unique biomaterial found in a lizard

Unique biomaterial found in a lizard

Researchers have found a biomaterial with surprising features in the skin of a lizard. The material is hard like enamel but is structured differently. Understanding the material on the nanoscale opens up new routes in designing for hard-wearing applications.

The Mexican beaded lizard has little hard plates in its skin called osteoderms, which are made of bone and topped with a so-called capping tissue. The plates protect the lizard from being hurt when bitten, but are also unique from a materials standpoint. An international research team has used the beamline DanMAX to study the material in the plates, particularly the capping tissue. 

“We chose this particular lizard because previous work suggested it had a very stiff capping tissue. There are several open questions, such as how such a stiff tissue can form on top of bone and what the structure and mechanics of the capping material are,” says Henrik Birkedal, one of the contributors to the study.

The experiments show that the capping tissue is as hard as enamel. However, its internal structure is different. So, it looks like these types of hard materials could be realised in more than one way, and due to the variability in structure, potentially with different other mechanical properties besides the hardness.  

“One of the most important results of the study was realising that nature fabricates hard mineralised tissues in a way that we had not seen before,” says Birkedal.

Researchers often study nature to understand and ultimately copy the materials created by evolution and natural selection. The research is called biomimicry or bioinspiration.

Read more on MAX IV website

Synchrotron science uncovers the origins of lizards

Synchrotron science uncovers the origins of lizards

A tiny fossil from Devon has shed new light on the origins of lizards, thanks to advanced synchrotron imaging carried out at Diamond Light Source and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF).

Researchers from the University of Bristol have identified the fossil as the oldest known member of the lizard lineage, dating back 242 million years to the Middle Triassic, just before the rise of the dinosaurs. Their findings, published in Nature, reveal unexpected details about the early evolution of lizards, snakes, and their relative, the tuatara, a group collectively known as the Lepidosauria.

Lepidosaurs are today the most successful group of land vertebrates, with more than 12,000 living species. Scientists long assumed their earliest ancestors would share key features of modern lizards and snakes, such as hinged skulls and palatal teeth. However, the new fossil challenges those assumptions.

“The new fossil shows almost none of what we expected,” said Dan Marke, who led the project as part of his studies for the MSc in Palaeobiology at Bristol. “It has no teeth on the palate, and no sign of any hinging. It does though have the open temporal bar, so one out of three. Not only this but it possesses some spectacularly large teeth compared to its closest relatives.”

Professor Genoveva Burca, Principal Beamline Scientist of I12-JEEP, said: “We are pleased to contribute to the scientific understanding of this sample. The unique capabilities of the the beamline, including its large beam size and high energy, combined with our expertise in advanced imaging methods, underscore the crucial role that synchrotron light sources like Diamond play in advancing palaeontological research.”

Because the specimen’s skull measures only 1.5 cm, traditional CT scans could not resolve the fine details. To overcome this, the team turned to high-energy synchrotron X-ray imaging. Using two powerful beamlines, I12 at Diamond Light Source and one at ESRF, the researchers were able to produce exceptionally detailed 3D models of the skull without damaging the delicate fossil.

One of I12’s scientists, and co-author of the paper, Alexander Liptak, explained: “I12 was the only beamline at Diamond suitable for this experiment. The study required a large beam size and high beam energy to accommodate both the fossil’s dimensions and attenuation, as well as the necessary contrasting medium introduced to account for the fossil’s high aspect ratio. Furthermore, the high photon flux available at I12 enabled us to virtually ‘inspect the sample’ by performing rapid exploratory XCT acquisitions and partial reconstructions, which were used to directly inform the necessary positioning and resolution requirements for subsequent scans.”

Read more on Diamond website

Big heart, acute senses key to explosive radiation of early fishes

Big heart, acute senses key to explosive radiation of early fishes

At the Swiss Light Source SLS, X-ray tomographic microscopy of tiny, 400-million-year-old fish shows how anatomy geared toward evading predators equipped it to become the hunter once jaws evolved. 

An international team led by scientists from the Canadian Museum of Nature and the University of Chicago reconstructed the brain, heart, and fins of an extinct fish called Norselaspis glacialis from a tiny fossil the size of a fingernail. They found evidence of change toward a fast-swimming, sensorily attuned lifestyle well before jaws and teeth were invented to better capture food. 

“These are the opening acts for a key episode in our own deep evolutionary history,” said Tetsuto Miyashita, research scientist at the Canadian Museum of Nature and lead author of the new study published in the journal Nature.

Jaws changed everything – but maybe not first

Fish have been around for half a billion years. The earliest species lived close to the seafloor, but when they evolved jaws and teeth, everything changed; by 400 million years ago, jawed fishes dominated the water column. Ultimately, limbed animals – including humans – also originated from this radiation of vertebrates.

It has long been a mystery, however, how this pivotal event occurred. The standard theory holds that jaws evolved first, and other body parts underwent changes to sustain a new predatory lifestyle. “But there is a large data gap beneath this transformation,” said Michael Coates, Professor and Chair of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago and a senior author of the study. “We’ve been missing snapshots from the fossil record that would help us order the key events; to reconstruct the pattern and direction of change.”

The new study flips the “jaws-first” idea on its head. “We found features in a jawless fish, Norselaspis, that we thought were unique to jawed forms,” said Miyashita, who was formerly a postdoctoral fellow in Coates’ lab in Chicago. “This fossil from the Devonian Period more than 400 million years ago shows that acute senses and a powerful heart evolved well before jaws and teeth.”

But the team also needed a chance encounter and a special tool to gain these insights into the inner workings of Norselaspis.

Synchrotron X-rays reveal ghosts of organs never seen before

The fossil of Norselaspis the team studied is so exquisitely preserved in a fragment of rock that they were able to scan it and see impressions of its heart, blood vessels, brain, nerves, inner ears, and even the tiny muscles that moved the eyeball. The fossil was hidden in one of thousands of sandstone blocks collected during a French paleontological expedition to Spitsbergen, Norway’s Arctic Archipelago, in 1969. 

Sorting through these rocks 40 years later, the study’s co-authors Philippe Janvier and Pierre Gueriau split one open, revealing a perfectly preserved cranium of Norselaspis barely half an inch long. The team took the fossil to Switzerland to scan it with high-energy X-ray beams at the TOMCAT beamline of the Swiss Light Source SLS.

“We used a technique known as X-ray tomographic microscopy,” said Federica Marone, TOMCAT beamline scientist at the SLS. “This allowed us to non-destructively study the 3D details of the fossil at very high resolution, and gain insights that have never been seen before,” 

The result was jaw-dropping. Slice by slice, the X-ray images revealed with astonishing detail delicate bone membranes that enclosed the fish’s organs. These tissue-thin bones capture the ghosts of organs formerly held by the skeleton. 

“Making use of the tiny refraction of the X-ray beam going through the sample, in addition to its commonly used absorption, we have been able to boost the contrast between similar tissues,” explains Marone. “This enabled us to image these tiny bones, only a hundredth of a millimetre wide, which show the imprints of now lost organs.”

Read more on SLS website

Image: Norselaspis glacialis was a jawless fish from the Devonian period 400 million years ago, which had anatomical features such as a larger heart and sensory organs that allowed later fish to adapt to a predatory lifestyle once jaws evolved.

Credit: Kristen Tietjen, University of Kansas

Metallic nanocatalysts: what really happens during catalysis

Metallic nanocatalysts: what really happens during catalysis

Using a combination of spectromicroscopy at BESSY II and microscopic analyses at DESY’s NanoLab, a team has gained new insights into the chemical behaviour of nanocatalysts during catalysis. The nanoparticles consisted of a platinum core with a rhodium shell. This configuration allows a better understanding of structural changes in, for example, rhodium-platinum catalysts for emission control. The results show that under typical catalytic conditions, some of the rhodium in the shell can diffuse into the interior of the nanoparticles. However, most of it remains on the surface and oxidises. This process is strongly dependent on the surface orientation of the nanoparticle facets.

Nanoparticles measure less than one ten-thousandth of a millimetre in diameter and have enormous surface areas in relation to their mass. This makes them attractive as catalysts: metallic nanoparticles can facilitate chemical conversions, whether for environmental protection, industrial synthesis or the production of (sustainable) fuels from CO2 and hydrogen.

Platinum core with Rhodium shell

Platinum (Pt) is one of the best-known metal catalysts and is used in heterogeneous gas phase catalysis for emission control, for example to convert toxic carbon monoxide in car exhaust gases from combustion engines into non-toxic CO2. ‘Mixing platinum particles with the element rhodium (Rh) can further increase efficiency,’ says Jagrati Dwivedi, first author of the publication. The location of the two elements plays an important role in this process. So-called core-shell nanoparticles with a platinum core and an extremely thin rhodium shell can help in the search for the optimal element distribution that can extend the lifetime of the nanoparticles.

Experiments at BESSY II and DESY NanoLab

Until now, however, little was known about how the chemical composition of a catalyst’s surface changes during operation. A team led by Dr Thomas F. Keller, head of the microscopy group at DESY NanoLab, has now investigated such crystalline Pt-Rh nanoparticles at BESSY II and gained new insights into the changes at the facets of the polyhedral nanoparticles.

The nanoparticles were first characterised and marked in their vicinity using scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy at DESY NanoLab. These markers were then used to analyse the same nanoparticles spectroscopically and image them microscopically simultaneously using X-ray light on a special instrument at BESSY II.

The SMART instrument at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society enables X-ray photoemission electron microscopy (XPEEM) in a microscope mode. This makes it possible to distinguish individual elements with high spatial resolution, enabling the observation of chemical processes at near-surface atomic layers. ‘The instrument allows the chemical analysis of individual elements with a resolution of 5-10 nanometres, which is unique,’ says Thomas Keller. The investigation has shown that rhodium can partially diffuse into the platinum cores during catalysis: both elements are miscible at the typical operating temperatures of the catalyst. The mixing is enhanced in a reducing environment (H2) and slowed down in an oxidising environment (O2) without reversing the net flow of rhodium into platinum. ‘At higher temperatures, this process even increases significantly,’ explains Keller.

Read more on BESSY II website

Digging into the origin of lizards

Digging into the origin of lizards

A new fossil from Devon reveals what the oldest members of the lizard group looked like, and there are some surprises, according to a research team from the University of Bristol. The team teamed up with the ESRF to shed light on this exceptional 242-million-year-old fossil. The study is published in Nature.

Today, lizards and their relatives, such as snakes, together with the unique tuatara from New Zealand, are the most successful group of land vertebrates, with over 12,000 species – more than birds and more than mammals. But what is it about lizards, snakes and the tuatara, called collectively the Lepidosauria, that has made them so successful?

Surprising insights into lizard origins

It was always expected that the first lepidosaurs would have had some of the lizard characters such as a partially hinged skull, an open lower temporal bar, and abundant teeth on the roof of the mouth (palate). These are all features of modern lizards and snakes that enable them to manipulate large prey by opening their mouths super-wide (skull hinge) and use teeth on the palate to grasp wriggling small prey animals.

The lower temporal bar is essentially the cheek bone, a bony rod that runs between the cheek and the jaw hinge and is absent in lizards and snakes today. Snakes and many lizards have all these features, as well as some additional flexibility of the skull. Only the tuatara has a complete lower temporal bar, giving it an archaic look reminiscent of some of the earliest and ancestral reptiles; and it also has some large palatal teeth.

“The new fossil shows almost none of what we expected,” said Dan Marke, Master student in Palaeobiology at Bristol. “It has no teeth on the palate, and no sign of any hinging. It does, though, have the open temporal bar, so one out of three. Not only this, but it possesses some spectacularly large teeth compared to its closest relatives.”

Unlocking fossil secrets with synchrotron X-rays

“In modern palaeontological studies we often X-ray scan the fossils,” added Dr David Whiteside, from the University of Bristol. “But the exceptional resolution and quality of scans from synchrotron X-ray sources show us all the fine details and save any risk of damage.”

To study this tiny fossil from the Middle Triassic, the team came to the European Synchrotron (ESRF), to the new beamline BM18 dedicated to high sensitivity phase-contrast tomography in large and complex samples, where they teamed up with Vincent Fernandez, paleontologist at the ESRF. “This fossil is a good example of what makes a beamline like ESRF’s BM18 shine: the specimen itself is only a few centimetres in size, embedded in a large piece of rock, and it requires high-energy phase-contrast imaging — the flagship technique of BM18.” says Fernandez.

“When you look at the fossil, the whole skeleton sits in the palm of your hand,” explained Michael Benton, Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. “But after the scans and the hard work of our students cleaning up the scan data, we can see the most amazing detail. The new beast has relatively large triangular-shaped teeth and probably used these to pierce and shear the hard cuticles of its insect prey, pretty much as the tuatara does today.”

“The new animal is unlike anything yet discovered and has made us all think again about the evolution of the lizard, snakes and the tuatara,” said Dan Marke. “We had to give it a name to distinguish it from everything else, and we chose Agriodontosaurus helsbypetrae, quite a mouthful, meaning ‘fierce toothed lizard from the Helsby rock”, after the Helsby Sandstone Formation in which it was discovered.

Read more on ESRF website

Agreement to secure the funding for the ALBA Synchrotron upgrade

Agreement to secure the funding for the ALBA Synchrotron upgrade

The budget approved by the Spanish Government and the Generalitat de Catalunya for the next 14 years is €926.2 million, funded 50% by each government, and including investments, operations and personnel. €170 million (18%) are devoted entirely to the ALBA II upgrade project. This new investment takes advantage of almost all of the previous investment in ALBA and increases its economic and societal return. The cost-benefit analysis has shown that each euro invested in ALBA II generates an annual social return of 1.5 euros.

The event has been presided over by the President of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Salvador Illa; the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant; the Catalan Minister for Research and Universities, Núria Montserrat; the Secretary of State of Science, Innovation and Universities, Juan Cruz Cigudosa; and the Director of the ALBA Synchrotron, Caterina Biscari. There were also attending the Delegate of the Spanish government in Catalonia, Carlos Prieto, the Mayor of Cerdanyola del Vallès, Carlos Cordon, and the Rector of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Javier Lafuente.

The event was streamed live and can be rewatched via this link.

Before signing the agreement, the delegation made a tour around ALBA. The director, Caterina Biscari, guided the group through the upcoming changes under the ALBA II project, highlighting its impact on the resolution, speed, and detection capabilities of synchrotron light-based experiments.

Read more on ALBA website

Sharks Shed Light on Origins of Adaptive Immune System

Sharks Shed Light on Origins of Adaptive Immune System

The Advanced Light Source (ALS) characterized a protein from a modern shark gene that explains the evolution of the adaptive immune system shared by all vertebrates.

Understanding the emergence of the adaptive immune system may aid researchers in advancing immunology, genetics, and biotechnology.

Left: The crystallographic model of the N-terminus of the UrIg2 protein from a nurse shark. Right: An example of one modern human antibody (IgG) whose variable region gene undergoes rearrangement.

The rise of adaptive immunity

Humans defend against infections through both the innate and adaptive immune systems. The innate response provides the first line of rapid defense, but it lacks both a way to address specific pathogens and a memory response to launch against attack by a returning invader. The adaptive immune system acts as a second line of defense. It lags behind the innate system because it must construct the antibodies to fight specific pathogens. The strength of this dual approach lies in the memory retained in the cells that produce antibodies that can be recalled to neutralize a returning threat.

The adaptive immune system is shared by all vertebrates and is believed to have developed soon after a genome-wide duplication event that occurred approximately 500 million years ago. The scientific community theorizes that the adaptive immune system developed when a mobile genetic element from a microbe—a recombination-activating gene (RAG) transposon—inserted itself into and split a gene in a eukaryotic cell, likely a white blood cell.

This random event led to a monumental and life-altering outcome. The process brought the repetitive elements from the transposon into this fractured gene with the RAG enzymes, which sparked the generation of an incalculable number of new proteins. To repair the fracture, the cell called in specialized machinery—double strand break repair enzymes—to fix the broken strands of genetic material. Proteins encoded by such “rearranged” genes eventually became antibodies—the front line of defense in the adaptive immune response.

Read more on ALS website

ESRF celebrates five years of the Extremely Brilliant Source

ESRF celebrates five years of the Extremely Brilliant Source

On 25 August 2025, the ESRF marks five years since the Extremely Brilliant Source (ESRF-EBS), a revolutionary new high-energy synchrotron, began operation.

Opened to the international user community on 25 August 2020, following a major upgrade, ESRF-EBS has proven to be a game changer for science in Europe and beyond, enabling breakthroughs across a wide range of fields — from health and energy to materials research, environmental science, and cultural heritage. Its exceptional capabilities have empowered researchers to explore living matter and materials with a level of detail that was previously out of reach — helping to address some of our society’s most pressing challenges.

From whole organs to connectomics: advancing health research

In health research, the ESRF has pioneered a new X-ray imaging technique, Hierarchical Phase-Contrast Tomography (HiP-CT). With the support of a dedicated beamline, it allows scientists to image whole human organs in 3D, down to the cellular level. This has already helped shed light on lung damage caused by COVID-19 and is opening new paths for cancer diagnostics and understanding complex diseases. Supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Human Organ Atlas project — led by ESRF and University College London — brings together over 50 research teams worldwide to build a global open-science atlas of healthy and diseased organs. More than 200 organs have been scanned, and nearly 200 open-access datasets are now available to researchers everywhere.

In connectomics, the ESRF hosts an ERC-funded project that has demonstrated a new approach to mapping neural circuits. Using X-ray nano-holotomography (XNH), researchers have reconstructed the networks controlling wing and leg movements in fruit flies. This technique, hundreds of times faster than traditional imaging methods, opens the door to large-scale mapping of brain connectivity. Future applications could include a full human connectome, especially when combined with other methods. A new nano-imaging beamline at ESRF’s ID18 is planned to accelerate this work and deepen our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. 

Supporting innovation and sustainability in energy, materials, and the environment

Other major research areas enabled by the exceptional performance of EBS include the development of new materials for sustainable energy and the circular economy. The ability to observe processes under in situ and operando conditions, from the atomic scale to full devices, is made possible by the highly penetrating nature of EBS X-rays. Through the European Battery Hub, the ESRF is enhancing collaboration with industry to support the development of safer, longer-lasting, and more sustainable battery technologies. In collaboration with BASF, a high-throughput X-ray screening service has been developed, capable of analysing over 3,000 cathode samples per hour. This significantly accelerates material screening, shortening development cycles and enabling faster innovation in battery design, all while leveraging the extraordinary volume of data collected using AI-based tools.

From a more fundamental perspective, the availability of nanometric, high-energy X-ray beams is opening new frontiers in geosciences and planetary science. These capabilities allow scientists to investigate materials under static pressures of several gigapascals — conditions found deep inside gas giant planets like Jupiter and Neptune, as well as in exoplanets. One ERC-funded project is using these capabilities to better understand Earth’s core by simultaneously probing the velocity and propagation of seismic waves through iron-rich materials under extreme conditions. 

In environmental science, ESRF-EBS is helping researchers understand how toxic elements such as cadmium behave in soil and plants. With EBS beam performances and the use of a new X-ray microscope, researchers can now map the distribution of cadmium and other elements with unprecedented resolution, and up to 20 times faster than before. This combination of speed and detail enables them to observe both the bigger picture and the finest-scale processes at the plant–soil interface, where crucial interactions take place. This knowledge is vital for improving food safety and soil remediation strategies.

Shedding light on the past: cultural heritage and palaeontology

In cultural heritage, ESRF-EBS recently welcomed one of the world’s most iconic instruments: Il Cannone, the 1743 violin famously played by Niccolò Paganini. Conservators and scientists joined forces to perform a non-invasive, high-resolution scan of the instrument, down to the cellular structure of the wood’s components. Such analysis sheds light on the craftsmanship, material ageing, and acoustic properties of historical instruments, guiding their conservation.

In paleontology, the same imaging techniques were used to scan the tiny fossilised skull of a 247-million-year-old reptile embedded in a rock, leading to the discovery of a new species and changing our understanding of reptile evolution.

A cutting-edge facility in high demand

Scientific results are already delivering on the promise of ESRF-EBS, opening new frontiers for knowledge. Demand from the research community is stronger than ever, with a record number of beamtime proposals and 10 ERC-funded projects based on EBS capabilities. In 2024, the ESRF produced 1,407 peer-reviewed publications — nearly 400 more than in previous years such as 2021 and 2022 — with a marked increase in articles published in high-impact journals. Each year, around 10,000 scientists carry out experiments across 46 beamlines. 

Achieving this milestone required an unprecedented scientific and engineering effort. In December 2018, after 26 years of loyal service, the ESRF shut down its original storage ring for 20 months. Teams took three months to dismantle the ESRF’s historic storage ring (disconnecting 200 km of cables and removing 1720 tons of equipment) and nine months to install the new machine in the 844 m-circumference tunnel. More than 10,000 components were aligned to within 50 microns — less than the width of a human hair — over nearly a kilometer. The first X-ray beam was delivered in January 2020, and the facility reopened to users on 25 August 2020, on schedule.

Read more on ESRF website

A bright light for Switzerland: The new Swiss Light Source is inaugurated

A bright light for Switzerland: The new Swiss Light Source is inaugurated

The Swiss Light Source SLS upgrade at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI will accelerate the path from scientific discovery to practical applications – ones that span healthcare, climate, energy, and future technologies. Present at its inauguration on the 21 August 2025 is Federal Councillor, Guy Parmelin. 

On the 21 August 2025, the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI inaugurated its newly upgraded Swiss Light Source SLS. Around 150 guests from politics, business and science were present to celebrate the achievement, including Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin and Martina Bircher, member of the cantonal government and Head of the Department of Education, Culture and Sport of the Canton of Aargau. 

The new SLS is one of the most ambitious science infrastructure projects in Switzerland – one that will enable experiments that were previously unthinkable. “The SLS was at its inception and is now after its comprehensive upgrade a national infrastructure built for the common good,” said PSI Director Christian Rüegg. “It is a tool for Swiss researchers and industry, and for our international guests to answer questions that matter for the future of people and the planet.”

The SLS is Switzerland’s national synchrotron light source – a huge X-ray microscope shaped like a doughnut. Scientists from all of Switzerland and around the world travel to the SLS to use the light, billions of times brighter than that of a hospital X-ray, to peer deep into proteins, cells and tissues, materials, and molecules with atomic resolution.

At the inauguration event, Christian Rüegg reflected on the visionary construction of the SLS in 2001 – at the time, one of the first national synchrotrons in the world. Now, it is the first national facility in the world to upgrade to the next generation of technology. With light many times more intense than before, it will accelerate the path from scientific discovery to practical applications – ones that span healthcare, climate, energy, and future technologies.

Guy Parmelin described the new SLS as a significant milestone for Switzerland as a centre for research and innovation. He pointed out that the SLS embodies the qualities that define Switzerland: long-term vision, perseverance and innovative strength. The upgrade reinforces the nation’s reputation as a global hub for cutting-edge science and technology and sends a strong and positive signal that Switzerland invests in its future. 

A 288m ring built to the precision of a Swiss watch

An amazing feat of engineering, saving many tens of millions of francs, was to install the new machine within the old building. Central to this is the new storage ring in which electrons whizz round at close to the speed of light, producing X-rays. This ring – with all its custom-made components from magnet systems to vacuum chambers – was painstakingly designed to fit perfectly within the existing building. 

“We built a ring with a 288m circumference to the precision of a Swiss watch – and completed it on schedule like a Swiss train,” said SLS 2.0 project leader Hans Braun. “The upgrade is a masterpiece of science, engineering and planning.” 

The light that it produces may be much more intense, but the upgrade also uses 33% less electricity than before. Such savings stem from state-of the-art engineering choices that make the operation more efficient, plus a new solar panelled roof.

Hans Braun added: “We set our sights high. Our goal was to create a new machine that pushes the boundaries of technology – and we achieved it.” 

A cutting-edge machine for Switzerland

The audience were tempted with some of the scientific offerings that the new machine will bring in a panel discussion entitled ‘Illuminating the Future of Science and Innovation’. Participating were leading voices in science and industry from Switzerland, the UK and Germany. 

Thanks to the upgrade, SLS experiments benefit from light up to 1000 times more intense than before. For some experiments, this will mean that samples that once took days can be imaged in minutes. For others, it will mean accessing tiny details of nature or materials never seen before. In other cases, entirely new research will be possible.

Diverse applications will benefit. Some of the examples discussed include imaging brain tissue at high resolution in 3D – an important development for understanding neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Imaging computer chips at the nanoscale is driving innovation in the semiconductor industry and is important for national security. Applications that improve the performance of catalysts were also discussed. Of particular importance to Jörg Duschmalé, board member from Roche, was that the SLS upgrade will allow some of the most interesting protein structures to finally be studied and new molecules for medical treatments to be developed.

The celebration of an enormous engineering effort

For those behind the upgrade, the inauguration was a moving occasion: in September 2023, the light was switched off at SLS for just over one year so that the electron storage ring could be dismantled and entirely replaced. Over 4000 tonnes of concrete were removed – and later put back in place. To form the new ring, PSI engineers installed 500 copper vacuum chambers and 1000 high-precision magnet systems – designed and tested on-site, together with countless pipes and tubes, cooling systems, vacuum pumps, and a total of around 500 kilometres of cables. 

Read more on SLS website

Looking into the tiniest deformations of atomic lattices

Looking into the tiniest deformations of atomic lattices

When light hits solar cells, so-called electron-hole pairs are created: the electrons are excited and can move almost freely in the material – i.e. to generate electricity. The electrons will leave ‘positive gaps’, so-called holes, in the semiconductor material. They can also move through the material. Both electrons and holes carry an electrical charge. They deform the surrounding atomic lattice on their way through the material slightly.

An international research team at European XFEL has now been able to directly observe this very weak effect for the first time. “With the help of extremely fast flashes from European XFEL’s X-ray laser, we were able to visualise this barely noticeable change”, explains Johan Bielecki, scientist at the Single Particles Biomolecules and Clusters/Serial Femtosecond Crystallography (SPB/SFX) instrument at European XFEL, where the experiment was carried out. According to the researchers, this could be an important step in the development of new materials for solar cells or light-emitting diodes, for example.

A so-called quantum dot of caesium, lead and bromine (CsPbBr3) studied by the scientists was only a few millionths of a millimetre in size. A quantum dot is a tiny object whose properties can no longer be described classically, but only with the help of quantum physics.

When light hits this quantum dot, electron-hole pairs are created. Due to their electrical charge, both the electron and the hole pull on the atoms in the crystal – as if two people were tugging on a net and deforming it. In this way, the pair of particles creates a kind of ‘dent’ in the crystal. In physics, this state is called an exciton-polaron.

The lattice deformation only affects a few atoms – but it is decisive for the optical and electronic properties of the material. “The better we understand the deformation, the better we can try to develop improved materials, for example for more efficient displays or more powerful sensors,” says Zhou Shen from the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter and lead author of the study.

A particularly precise method is required to detect the lattice deformation at all. The researchers used the European XFEL in Schenefeld near Hamburg – the largest X-ray laser in the world. It emits extremely short and intense X-ray flashes. It enables images to be captured within femtoseconds – in other words, within a quadrillionth of a second. “It’s like observing the movement of atoms with a high-speed camera,” says Bielecki.

Read more on European XFEL website

Image: Johan Bielecki at the Single Particles Biomolecules and Clusters/Serial Femtosecond Crystallography (SPB/SFX) instrument of European XFEL, where the experiment was carried out.

Credit: European XFEL

X-rays reveal fossil stealth technology

X-rays reveal fossil stealth technology

Using state-of-the-art X-ray microtomography at the Swiss Light Source SLS, operated by the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, researchers have gained insights into the silent hunting techniques of a giant ichthyosaur – a marine predator that roamed the dimly lit oceans 183 million years ago.

In the twilight of the Jurassic period, a giant ruled the seas: Temnodontosaurus, an ichthyosaur that was more than ten metres long, with eyes the size of footballs. It glided virtually noiselessly through the dark waters – always on the lookout for prey. This marine predator relied on specialised stealth strategies: no eddies, no noise – advancing silently before making a lightning attack.

What may sound like a scene from a wildlife documentary is actually based on the latest scientific findings. An international research team led by Johan Lindgren from Lund University has managed, for the first time, to analyse the soft tissue structures of an exceptionally well-preserved forefin of one of these marine giants. The structure of the forefin suggests an evolutionary adaptation to suppress noise when swimming – comparable to the serrated flight feathers of an owl, which glides through the night almost without a sound. In order to determine the detailed structure of the soft tissue, the Temnodontosaurus’s forefin was sent on a journey – to undergo X-ray tomography at the Swiss Light Source SLS in Villigen.

From land animal to silent leviathan

Ichthyosaurs lived on Earth between 250 and 90 million years ago, making them one of the most successful groups of marine tetrapods – four-limbed vertebrates – that we know of. Like modern whales, these ancient aquatic reptiles descended from land-dwelling animals that gradually adapted fully to life in the ocean by developing fins and streamlined, almost dolphin-like bodies.

The new study, published in the journal Nature, describes an almost complete forefin of the largest ocean megapredator during the Early Jurassic. “The wing-like shape of the flippers, the absence of bones at the distal end – the part furthest from the body – the longitudinal skin structures and the distinctly jagged trailing edge indicate that this massive animal had developed means of minimising noise when swimming,” explains Johan Lindgren, the study’s lead author, who specialises in the analysis of fossilised soft tissues in marine reptiles. This means that the ichthyosaur must have moved through the water almost noiselessly. “We have never before seen such sophisticated evolutionary adaptations in a marine animal.”

Although many unusual ichthyosaurs have been found in which the soft tissue has been preserved, even including some with complete body outlines, the known soft parts have so far been restricted to a small group of dolphin-sized species. The new discovery is remarkable in that it represents the first soft tissue of a large ichthyosaur. Also, the structure of the flipper is unlike that of any other known aquatic animal, living or extinct. Its jagged rear edge is reinforced by novel rod-like mineralised structures, which the team refers to as “chondroderms”. The fossilised fin was discovered by chance at a road construction site near Dotternhausen in southern Germany – by fossil collector Georg Göltz, a co-author of the study, who was looking out for other fossils there.

High-tech methods reveal prehistoric stealth technology

To better understand the structures preserved in the fossil, the fin underwent a series of highly sensitive procedures. Synchrotron-based X-ray microtomography at the TOMCAT beamline of the SLS at PSI played a key role. “The high resolution and high contrast of our tomography procedure meant that we were able to visualise the fine internal structure of the chondroderms in three dimensions,” says Federica Marone, a beamline scientist at PSI’s Center for Photon Science. “This imaging technique was crucial to helping us understand the mechanical function of the rod-like reinforcements –particularly their role in minimising noise while swimming.”

Read more on SLS website

Image: This is what the silent Jurassic hunter might have looked like: Temnodontosaurus in action.

Credit: Adobe Stock

Revealing quantum fluctuations in complex molecules

Revealing quantum fluctuations in complex molecules

Due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle of quantum physics, atoms and molecules never come completely to rest, even in their lowest energy state. Researchers at European XFEL in Schenefeld near Hamburg have now been able to directly measure this quantum motion in a complex molecule for the first time. For this, however, as they report in the journal Science, they had to make the molecule explode in the process.

Absolute standstill only exists in classical physics. In the quantum world, even the ground state with the lowest energy is characterised by persistent fluctuations. This is due to a quantum-mechanical principle discovered by Werner Heisenberg a hundred years ago during the development of quantum mechanics. The so-called zero-point fluctuations are a quantum effect that prevents atoms from remaining precisely at a fixed position, even at temperatures near absolute zero. At European XFEL in Schenefeld, researchers have now made the previously invisible directly observable – and the quantum world a bit more tangible.

An international team led by Rebecca Boll from the SQS (Small Quantum Systems) instrument at European XFEL in Schenefeld, Ludger Inhester from the DESY research centre, and Till Jahnke from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, succeeded in visualising the collective trembling of an entire molecule. Using a sophisticated experiment and refined data analysis, they were able to measure the quantum fluctuations of the 2-iodopyridine molecule (C5H4IN), which consists of eleven atoms – a milestone in molecular imaging. They describe their work in the renowned journal Science.

The researchers employed a method as spectacular as its name: Coulomb Explosion Imaging. The ultrashort, extremely intense X-ray laser pulses of European XFEL strip numerous electrons from the atoms of individual 2-iodopyridine molecules very rapidly. The remaining atomic cores become positively charged, repelling each other. The result resembles a microscopic big bang: the atomic cores fly apart in an explosion.

Read more on European XFEL website

Image: Visualisation of collective quantum fluctuations of a complex 2-iodopyridine molecule

Credit: European XFEL / Tobias Wüstefeld)