Chi-Chang's Corner

NSLS Receives $1 Million in Supplemental Funding

August 12, 2008

Chi-Chang Kao
NSLS Department Chair
kao@bnl.gov

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As a result of the supplemental appropriations bill recently signed by the President, the NSLS will receive about $1 million extra in funding this year. At first, it didn’t seem like this bill would have a direct impact on us, so this was an extremely pleasant, and much-needed, surprise. This additional funding will help maintain current staffing levels and replace essential staff, enable the purchasing of critical spare parts, and assist in moving forward with our major upgrade programs. We’ll also recover some of the operating hours that were cut when the original budget shortfall was announced. The winter shutdown, which was previously planned to begin before Thanksgiving, has now been pushed back to December 8, opening up more than two extra weeks of beam time for our users. You can view the revised long-term schedule online.

We also received other encouraging funding news: the three-year, $1 million award for the Synchrotron Catalysis Consortium (SCC) will be renewed through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences. The SCC, which promotes the utilization of synchrotron techniques to perform cutting-edge catalysis research, operates two – and soon, three – beamlines at the NSLS and has been extremely successful in its first years of operation. You can read more about the consortium and its funding renewal in this issue of eNews.

We’ve begun to implement training for Brookhaven’s human performance initiative. The goal of the human performance method is to understand and anticipate the various pressures on staff and users, and then improve the work environment to minimize accidents. This is a very important approach and I think you’ll find the training sessions both informative and interesting.

The second annual NSLS Historically Black Colleges and Universities Workshop was again a success. The event attracted 17 participants from nine institutions for tutorials about synchrotron science and techniques, tips for writing a successful beam time proposal, and a chance to form research collaborations with our staff. Many of the professors left with interesting possibilities for future research at the NSLS and I hope we can continue to strengthen their ties to our facility and staff members.

Our annual Summer Sunday event drew in more than 800 community members – a record high for the facility. Many of the exhibits were new or improved upon this year and it was wonderful to watch the visitors learn more about the science behind these creative demonstrations. I’d like to thank the more than 70 NSLS volunteers who helped make this event possible.

I’d also like to thank our machine operations staff for their quick and efficient response to the electrical trips we’ve experienced this summer. In each incident, the machine has come back online in a short amount of time, and the users and staff scientists greatly appreciate your hard work.

There’s also some sad news to share. Rutgers University professor Theodore (Ted) Madey, a prominent NSLS user, died in late July after battling lung cancer. Ted was a pioneer in the field of physics and chemistry of solid surfaces and will be greatly missed.

Finally, a team of researchers from The Wistar Institute, the University of Pennsylvania, and Johns Hopkins University recently used x-ray crystallography at the NSLS to crack the 3-D structure of an enzyme that is linked to numerous human cancers. A better understanding of this protein, called p300/CBP, might serve as the basis for an anticancer drug. You can read more about their research in this edition of eNews.