BM29 staff

Beamline operation managers

Petra Pernot

Petra Pernot is the Beamline Operation Manager (BLOM) overseeing the BM29 BioSAXS beamline. Since 2008, she has been instrumental in developing and operating BioSAXS at the ESRF, leading the transformation of the former ID14-3 MX beamline into its current BioSAXS configuration. This included relocating to the BM29 end station in 2011 and subsequent upgrades during the ESRF-EBS project, enhancing the facility's capabilities significantly.

With a background in solid-state physics and a Ph.D. focusing on topography at ID19, Petra brings extensive expertise to her role, cultivated through her academic pursuits in Prague and Grenoble. Since joining the ESRF community in 1996, she has been dedicated to advancing structural biology research, continually contributing to its progress.

Tully, M. D., ... , Pernot, P. (2023). BioSAXS at European Synchrotron Radiation Facility – Extremely Brilliant Source: BM29 with an upgraded source, detector, robot, sample environment, data collection and analysis software. In Journal of Synchrotron Radiation (Vol. 30, Issue 1, pp. 258–266). International Union of Crystallography (IUCr)

Pernot, P., et al. (2013). Upgraded ESRF BM29 beamline for SAXS on macromolecules in solution. In Journal of Synchrotron Radiation (Vol. 20, Issue 4, pp. 660–664). International Union of Crystallography (IUCr)

Mark Tully

Mark Tully is the lead researcher on BM29. He is passionate about SAXS, first encountering the technique during his biochemistry and structural biology PhD at Liverpool University. He then followed this with a Post Doc at Diamond Light Source, B21 BioSAXS were he spent 5 years developing the beamline including adding the SEC-SAXS sample environment. He then made the move to the ESRF as a beamline scientist on BM29 in 2017 before becoming a BLOM in 2022.

His personal research interests include understanding the processes of liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) using SAXS, were you are able to follow the progression of the often intrinsically disordered proteins from a dilute phase to a condensed phase through to the formation of hydrogels. He cultivates several collaborations including the lab of Chloe Zubieta and Stephanie Hutin at the LPCV, Grenoble.

Phase separation research has driven Mark to develop a new microfluidics platform on BM29, that enables the user to probe the dynamics of protein interactions at msec timescales or measure through phase transitions from liquids to hydrogels and in the process increasing the scope of the experiments offered on BM29.

Tully, M. D., Tarbouriech, N., Rambo, R.P. and Hutin, S. (2021) Analysis of SEC-SAXS data via EFA deconvolution and Scatter. In J. Vis. Exp. (167), e61578, doi:10.3791/61578

Post-doctoral researchers

Hayden Fisher

Hayden Fisher, a post-doctoral researcher at BM29, specialises in integrative structural biology, focusing on antibody flexibility and antibody-antigen interactions. He merges computational modeling with SAXS to unravel the complex mechanisms governing these biomolecules. Hayden is currently developing a fully-automated SAXS-modelling pipeline at BM29, aiming to enrich insights derived from user data.

With expertise in SAXS, X-ray crystallography, and computational modelling, Hayden delves deep into molecular behavior. He also explores the application of machine learning and AI methodologies in structural biology. Hayden obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Southampton in 2021, under the guidance of Jonathan Essex, Ivo Tews, and Mark Cragg.

Orr, C. M*., Fisher, H*., et al. (2022). Hinge disulfides in human IgG2 CD40 antibodies modulate receptor signaling by regulation of conformation and flexibility. Science Immunology (Vol. 7, Issue 73)

Heckel, F., Turaj, A. H., Fisher, H., et al. (2022). Agonistic CD27 antibody potency is determined by epitope-dependent receptor clustering augmented through Fc-engineering. Communications Biology (Vol. 5, Issue 1)

Yu, X., Chan, H. T. C., Fisher, H., et al. (2020). Isotype Switching Converts Anti-CD40 Antagonism to Agonism to Elicit Potent Antitumor Activity. Cancer Cell (Vol. 37, Issue 6, pp. 850-866.e7)

Visiting scientists

Stephanie Hutin

Stephanie Hutin, a visiting scientist based in the Laboratoire Physiologie Cellulaire & Végétale - CNRS, works in the field of liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), a crucial mechanism for the dynamic compartmentalization of biological macromolecules. LLPS is intricately influenced by the physiochemical environment with recent investigations, including those performed by Stephanie, highlighting protein-LLPS as a pivotal and widespread mechanism for direct environmental sensing in plants.

Drawing upon a diverse array of technical expertise spanning small angle X-ray scattering, atomic force microscopy, electron microscopy, and biochemical assays, Stephanie's research is dedicated to unraveling the physiological significance of LLPS. Central to this endeavor is delving into the atomic and molecular mechanisms that instigate phase separation, shedding light on its fundamental functions.

Hutin S, et al. In vitro determination of temperature-dependent DNA-binding of the Evening Complex using Electrophoretic Mobility Shift Assays. 2024 Thermomorphogenesis - Methods and Protocols

Hutin S, et al. Phase separation and molecular ordering of the plant thermosensory protein EARLY FLOWERING 3. PNAS (2023) 120 (28) e2304714120.

Jung J-H*, Barbosa AD*, Hutin S*, et al. A prion-like domain in ELF3 functions as a thermosensor in Arabidopsis. Nature, 2020; 585(7824): 256–60.

Antonino Caliò

Antonino Caliò studied Physics at the University of Palermo and obtained his Ph.D. in Biophysics at the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 in 2022. He then joined the ESRF as a postdoctoral fellow, studying Intrinsically Disordered Proteins and their interactions with DNA. His interests range from the fundamental physics of protein dynamics to the structural properties of biomolecular assemblies, studied by means of neutron and X-ray scattering techniques. He is also responsible for the development of a microfluidics sample environment on BM29.

J Peters, R Oliva, A Caliò, et al. (2023). Effects of Crowding and Cosolutes on Biomolecular Function at Extreme Environmental Conditions. Chemical Reviews 123 (23), 13441-13488

A. Caliò, et al. (2022). Unravelling the adaptation mechanisms to high pressure in proteins. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 23 (15), 8469

EMBL ARISE Fellow

Anton Popov

Anton Popov is an ARISE Fellow (co-funded by EMBL and the Marie-Skłodowska-Curie Grant) in McCarthy Team (Synchrotron crystallography team) and a visiting scientist at the ESRF Structural Biology Group.

After getting his engineering degree in 2009, he was working as a Research Engineer and Instrumentation Scientist in the Applied Nanotechnologies Department for six years. He obtained his Ph.D. in methods and tools of experimental physics (Microfluidics) at the NRC "Kurchatov Institute" in 2019. Then he joined the ESRF as a postdoctoral fellow to develop the microfluidics for the macromolecular crystallography and biological small angle X-ray scattering beamlines.

His scientific interests expanding from the classical experimental and applied physics to the crystallization kinetics of thermal dependent proteins and X-ray scattering techniques, didn't overwhelmed his engineering background and skills to create scientific instrumentation. His main passion and responsibility is the R&D of the microfluidic sample environment and devices to be used in the laboratories and on the beamlines.

van der Linden, P.J.E.M., Popov, A.M., Pontoni D. (2020) Accurate and rapid 3D printing of microfluidic devices using wavelength selection on a DLP printer. Lab on a Chip (20(22):4128-4140).

Popov, A.M., van der Linden,P.J.E.M., Pontoni, D., Mueller-Dieckmann, C., Tully, M.D. (2023) Peltier-based experimental device for studying the effect of temperature on protein crystallization kinetics. Crystal Growth and Design (23, 6, 3970–3977).