In charge of the PROXIMA1 beamline, one of the two beamlines dedicated to the crystallography of biomolecules at SOLEIL, Andrew Thompson has just been appointed Scientific Director of Life Sciences at SOLEIL on April 3rd, 2014.
Physicist and bio-crystallographer trained in Manchester and Keele, Andrew Thompson dived into the world of synchrotrons at the end of the 70’s at Daresbury Laboratory. Versatile, he was involved in both the operation of the storage ring and the beamlines. In particular, he designed one of the X-ray diffraction beamlines at Daresbury for crystallography of macromolecules (beamline 9.5 – used for both Laue and MAD techniques)
Subsequently, he was responsible for the design and construction of two bio-crystallography beamlines at the ESRF in Grenoble (BM14 and ID29), as part of the partnership between ESRF and EMBL outstation in Grenoble.
Andrew joined SOLEIL in 2002, to handle the construction of PROXIMA1. He also closely monitored the set-up of PROXIMA 2, the second bio-crystallography beamline at SOLEIL, as a technical advisor, and was the Director of the Biology scientific section at SOLEIL for 2 years.