py-ISPyB - A new implementation of a LIMS for experiments in structural biology

ISPyB is a mature Laboratory Information System (LIMS) for synchrotron-based Macromolecular Crystallography (MX), Small Angle Scattering (BioSAXS), and Electron Microscopy (EM) experiments, developed and used by a number of light sources world-wide. The project has been developed over the last 20 years and is based on an ageing JAVA software stack. The ISPyB collaboration has continued to grow and the software is now a critical part of experiments at many synchrotrons. In 2019 the ISPyB collaboration decided to evaluate newer software technologies and redesign the architecture to enable easier maintenance and facilitate extension. A python prototype was developed in 2019 by EMBL Hamburg which has now matured into an extensible framework. The first use case of this new framework, py-ISPyB, is to implement Serial Crystallography (SSX) on the ID29 beamline at the ESRF-EBS. This talk will present the current state and progress of the project including the software design, code, and collaboration.