Solution biophysics

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Analytical ultracentrifuge Beckman Coulter Proteomelab XL-I
Applied Photophysics Chirascan circular dichroism spectrometer
DLS Dynamic Light Scattering Wyatt DynaPro PlateReader II
Jasco J-1500 circular dichroism spectrometer
TA NanoITC
TCSPC TD-Fluor Horiba Fluorolog 3 time domain fluorimeter
Xenocs Xeuss 3.0 small/wide X-ray scattering system 

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Analytical ultracentrifuge Beckman Coulter Proteomelab XL-I

Short name: AU
Instrument location: KCL 3
Date of acquisition: November 2009

Analytical ultracentrifugation is a column-free separation technique that measures the relative change in the distribution of molecular weights, providing a way to measure heterogeneity, stoichiometry and self-association of proteins, oligomers, aggregates, particles, colloids, and small structures in solution. 

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Applied Photophysics Chirascan circular dichroism spectrometer

Short name: CD
Instrument location: KCL 3
Date of acquisition: September 2013

Chirascan is a modern, high-performance circular dichroism (CD) spectrometer operating in the ultraviolet and visible wavelength ranges. It is typically used to probe the secondary structure or conformation of bio-molecules.

Standard operating procedure

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DLS Dynamic Light Scattering Wyatt DynaPro PlateReader II

Short name: DLS
Instrument type: Scattering, structural science
Instrument location: KCL 3
Date of acquisition: October 2013

Dynamic light scattering measures the diffusion rate of molecules or particles in solution by observing the fluctuations in scattered light from a laser passing through a sample. The sensitivity of DLS increases with increasing molecular size, with a typical lower size limit of 0.5 nanometers and upper size limit of 10 micrometers.

Typical applications for DLS include:

• Screening macromolecules prior to crystallization trials
• Measuring the stability of protein samples for NMR analysis
• Monitoring molecular aggregation
• Characterizing nanoparticles

The DynaPro PlateReader II is set up to make these measurements in 96-, 384-, or 1536-well plates using as little as 5 microliters of sample.

Standard operating procedure

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Jasco J-1500 circular dichroism spectrometer

Short name: JASCO CD
Instrument location: KCL 3
Date of acquisition: April 2026

The J-1500 is a modern, high performance circular dichroism (CD) spectrometer operating in the ultraviolet and visible wavelength range (near IR up to 1600 nm optional). It is typically used to probe the secondary structure or conformation of bio-molecules and protein-drug interactions, but it can also be used for solid materials. 

The following accessories are available for the J-1500:

Temperature ramping/scanning with multi-cell turret
Fluorescence emission
Solid state integrating sphere
Automated titration
Autosampler with flow cell
Extended wavelength from UV to near-IR (1600 nm)

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TA NanoITC

Short name: ITC
Instrument location: KCL 16B
Date of acquisition: August 2014

By determining heat changes associated with binding between any two biomolecules, ITC measures all binding parameters in a single label-free, in-solution experiment.

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TCSPC TD-Fluor Horiba Fluorolog 3 time domain fluorometer

Short name: TCSPC
Instrument location: KCL 16B
Date of acquisition: December 2009

The Fluorolog 3 is a modular fluorometer that can be set up to make time-domain fluorescence measurements at specific wavelengths, or steady-state fluorescence measurements over a range of excitation and/or emission wavelengths. 

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Xenocs Xeuss 3.0 small/wide X-ray scattering system 

Short name: SAXSWAXS
Instrument location: SCL 26
Date of acquisition: December 2022

The Xeuss 3.0 offers maximum flexibility of measurement configurations to get the best possible data quality on any type of sample.

In particular, the following key features enable the user to optimize experiments or results:

• High flux settings adapted for fast kinetics embedded in a low background camera
• Largest surface of detection movable all the way from WAXS to long distance SAXS to optimize resolution and signal-to-noise
• Long-distance SAXS settings for measuring large characteristic dimensions (up to 900 nm depending on the Xeuss 3.0 model)
• Optional USAXS module to characterize large structures (> 2.5 µm)

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