CSRRI Participates in Denver X-Ray Conference

Illinois Tech’s Center for Synchrotron Radiation Research and Instrumentation (CSRRI) was an exhibitor at the 2016 Denver X-Ray Conference (DXC), the world’s largest X-ray conference, in Rosemont, Ill., August 1-5.

In addition, 13 Illinois Tech faculty and students led workshops, exhibited posters, and otherwise participated in the conference, the 65th annual one.

CSRRI promotes, coordinates, and fosters research and educational activities in synchrotron radiation science and related fields at Illinois Tech. It operates two sectors at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory: BioCAT, sector 18; and MR-CAT, sector 10. These facilities are among the best in the world for synchrotron x-ray studies.

At DXC, participants included Grant Bunker, chair and professor of physics, and Carlo Segre, Duchossois Leadership Professor of Physics, who led a workshop on “Fundamentals of X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy.” Srinivas Chakravarthy, research assistant professor of biology, won an award for his poster about advances made at BioCAT in the small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) method for studying biological macromolecules (carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids, and proteins) in solution, as well as in the cutting-edge field of time-resolved SAXS, which provides a real-time glimpse into the structural changes during key biochemical processes such as protein folding and enzymatic reactions.

Other Illinois Tech participants included Joshua Wright, research assistant professor of physics; Ali Khounsary, research professor of physics; graduate students Elahe Moazzen (chemistry), He Zhang (chemistry), Shankar Aryal (physics), Yujia Ding (physics), Nathaniel Beaver (physics), Kamil Kucuk (physics), and John Hasier (MMAE); and undergraduate Mary Hawgood (MMAE).