The macromolecular crystallography beamline of SSRF

The macromolecular crystallography beamline BL17U1 at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) is the first dedicated macromolecular crystallography (MX) beamline at a third-generation synchrotron in China. It utilizes an in-vacuum undulator as a source and is energy-tunable from 5 to 18 keV. The beamline was commissioned and opened for users in April 2009. The experimental station was upgraded in 2011 with an advanced detector, a high precision goniometer and an automatic sample exchanger for high efficient and high-throughput data collection of protein crystals. The current set-up allows for remote operation of sample mounting, centering and data collection of pre-frozen crystals. In recent two years, the number of PDB depositions from this beamline exceeds 330 each year. In this paper, we describe the complete BL17U1 beamline with upgraded end station and how it is managed for user community.