We are one of the six constituent core facilities of the London Regional Proteomics Centre, and are located in Room 333 of the Medical Sciences Building.
Researchers, staff or students wishing to access the MCF to conduct experiments should contact or have their supervisor contact the Facility Director. Consultation regarding the instruments, their uses and limitations may be offered. Those interested in discussing our services, user fees, or to schedule training or any services required should contact the Facility Manager.
Please coordinate your time with other users. Instrument time can be reserved on the sign-up board by the generator, or by contacting the Facility Manager. The level of usage of each instrument often varies, therefore you are advised to reserve the instrument at least 48 hours in advance. In order to allow other possible users to access the generator, please do not reserve it for more than 96 hours without interruption. Therefore, if you have been using the generator for 72 hours, do not start a new data collection-- instead, put your name at the bottom of the queue and let the next user go. If you reserve time and decide not to use it, you must cancel at least 24 hours in advance or you will be charged for instrument time.
Process data as it is collected: This allows you to evaluate whether collection of a full dataset is worthwhile, and will also help you to optimize your data collection. For example, if the first 10 frames show that the mosaicity is 1.5-degrees, you may want to collect 2-degree oscillations rather than 1-degree oscillations. By processing "on the fly" you will also know exactly when you have a sufficiently complete/redundant dataset.
Remove frames from the Hercules computer: once your data collection has finished, transfer your frames to another computer or back them up onto a CD and then delete them from Hercules so that there is plenty of space for the next user.
