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NEWS

March 2023 ESRFnews

And the Young Scientist

Award goes to…

Tilman Grünewald, a materials scientist

at the Institut Fresnel in Marseille,

France, was honoured by the jury of

this year’s ESRF Young Scientist Award

“for his outstanding contribution and

scientific leadership in the development

of X-ray diffraction techniques and their

application to the understanding of

biomaterials”.

Backed by a starting grant from

the European Research Council,

Grünewald’s research focuses on the

enthesis, which attaches ligament to

bone and is often involved in sporting

injuries. Our bodies cannot regenerate

enthesis, and scientists know little

about its biomechanics, primarily

because the mesoscale origin of that

biomechanics is very hard to see.

Grünewald has been developing a

new synchrotron diffraction technique,

“texture tomography”, for the ESRF

beamlines ID15A and ID13 to expose

organization and crystallographic

texture on that mesoscale, while

keeping a large field of view. Supported

by his collaborators at the Institute des

Sciences du Mouvement in Marseille,

he hopes that his results will reveal the

structural make-up of the enthesis for

the first time – and give hope for the

rehabilitation of those suffering from

related orthopaedic injuries.

“I am very honoured to receive the

Young Scientist Award, a recognition

to my career, which has been defined

throughout the years thanks to

supportive mentors and collaborators,”

Grünewald said on receipt of his award

at the ESRF User Meeting in February.

Grünewald’s scientific determination

was evident in his subsequent lecture.

An (ultimately successful) mission to

observe active biomineralisation in live

crustaceans, for example, required

a special request of ID13’s Manfred

Burghammer. “Manfred was not pleased

when I proposed to bring 150 litres of

seawater into the hutch,” he joked.

B R U N O L A V I T

Top to bottom:

Sandrine Lyonnard

of the CEA extols

the benefits of the

new user-access

“hub” for battery

scientists;

Marianna Genta

of the University of

Piemonte Orientale

talks fellow users

through her poster,

which was judged

to be joint-best;

The other joint

winner of the best

poster award

ESRF scientist

Can Yildirim

B R U N O L A V I T

has historically been stymied by the

fact that the performance of batteries

involves different effects taking place

over a range of spatial and time scales

– meaning that any one group hoping

to understand a certain phenomenon

has often had to submit individual

proposals for several different

experiments at different synchrotron

beamlines.

Developed as part of the EU’s

STREAMLINE project to improve

ESRF–EBS user operation, the

pioneering battery hub has partnered

the CEA with the ESRF and the

Institut LaueLangevin so that

battery scientists who best know

the needs of their research can

collectively apply for beamtime

and share it across experiments

and techniques as well as create

and petition for developments in

instrumentation and other services

that might advance the field

Lyonnard spoke of the hubs success

so far and fielded a range of audience

questions about the practicalities of

the new access mode and how it might

evolve in years to come, including for

other areas of science that address

pressing societal concerns. (The new

access modes, which include two types

of block-allocation group as well as the

hub, will be the subject of an in-depth

article in the next issue of ESRFnews.)

Updates from the beamlines

In a break between the keynotes,

attendees – on-site and virtual – were

provided with an update of ESRF

developments. In a report by Gema

Martínez-Criado, the ESRF director of

physical sciences, they learned that the

new nuclear-resonance beamline, ID14,

is progressing well, and is expected to

start user operation in March 2024

(see User Corner, p12). She also said

that the very large sample stage for the

flagship phase-contrast tomography

beamline BM18 is currently being

tested, with a view to be ready for users

by June this year; and she reminded

listeners that the flagship ID29

beamline for the emerging technique

of synchrotron serial crystallography

has started user operation. “ The User

Meeting is the perfect occasion to

discuss the outcomes of over a year of

EBS science [in full operational mode],

to brainstorm together the research

challenges of the future and to foster

new scientific collaborations,” she said.

In other beamline updates, Carsten

Detlefs told users that they should

think about submitting experimental

proposals for ID03, the new hard X-ray

microscope, by the September deadline

this year, as like ID14 it is due to start

user mode in March 2024. Luis Carlos

Colocho Hurtarte, a postdoc at ID21,

said that the beamline best known

for cultural heritage is beginning to

commission its new X-ray nanoscope

(see “Behind the art”, p15). Finally,

Kirill Lomachenko, scientist in charge

of the double-crystal monochromator

branch of ID24, which is just starting

user operation, described the differences

between it, the energy-dispersive

branch and the neighbouring, more

general purpose BM23

After the reveal of this years Young

Scientist Award right the plenary

day closed with posters conversation

and canapés with Marianna Genta of

the University of Piemonte Orientale

and Can Yildirim ESRF scientist

at the ID06 and ID03 beamlines

winning the best poster awards to

much applause Other attendees

could congratulate themselves on

depleting the food and drinks before

the departure of the last tram back to

Grenoble town centre

B R U N O L A V I T B R U N O L A V I T