Biology, Deuteration, Chemistry and Soft Matter support

In order to maintain their ranking at an international level, European research infrastructures must optimise their resources and develop synergies at every level. The ILL is firmly committed not only to building high-performance instruments, but also to offering the best possible scientific environment for its user community. On-site sample preparation laboratories provide space and equipment to prepare and characterise samples before, during and after neutron experiments. They are available to the user community and empower in-house research. Over the years, we have established close collaborations with neighbouring institutes and launched a number of successful scientific and support partnerships, such as the Partnerships for Soft Condensed Matter (PSCM) since 2012, and for Structural Biology (PSB) since 2002. Within these partnerships, dedicated platforms and laboratories: the Deuteration (D)-Lab and Lipid (L)-Labs provide the ILL user community with a variety of deuterated biological molecules, including proteins and lipids. These activities are now grouped together in the BDCS (Biology, Deuteration, Chemistry and Soft Matter) group, headed by Frank Gabel.