The European Spallation Source (ESS) is currently under construction in Lund, Sweden. The Deuteration and Macromolecular Crystallisation (DEMAX) facility is based at Medicon Village in Lund.

DEMAX opened for requests with a preliminary call for sample proposals in late 2019. Coupled with their proposal for beamtime at ISIS, Dr Katherine Thompson from Birkbeck College, along with Professor Adrian Rennie and PhD student Emil Gustafsson, both from University of Uppsala, applied in this first call and were accepted.

Their compound, a surfactant based on those found in the lungs, was ​successfully synthesised in the new facility. Arriving at ISIS a week before their experiment in February, the sample was crucial to their investigations. “The experiment went well," says Katherine; “and we definitely couldn't have done it without the surfactant!"

---------------------------------------------------

The UK-ESS programme manages the delivery of the UK's £165M in-kind contribution to the ESS construction project. Part of that in-kind includes ISIS support and guidance for the design and installation of user labs. The ESS Deuteration Team, along with the ISIS Deuteration Facility, are collaborating as part of a Sine2020 funded project “DEUNET" https://deuteration.net/.