Integrated Molecular Structure Education and Research Center (IMSERC) at Northwestern

In accordance with the latest Office for Research guidance, IMSERC is lifting its:

• Face covering requirements for fully vaccinated users. Masks are now optional for individuals who are fully vaccinated; unvaccinated individuals are required to continue masking indoors. Please respect the choice of those who choose to continue masking as well as vaccinated individuals who prefer to unmask
• Occupancy requirements. Room reservations through NUcore are no longer required
• COVID training. COVID-safety signs will be removed in the following days
• One-way entrance, exit, and traffic pattern. It will take a couple of days for door access/entrance through the 1st floor to be re-programmed

In accordance with the Phased Return to Campus plan and guidance released by the University, IMSERC staff will begin the process of having a greater in-person presence in the facility, starting the first week in June.

Additionally, due to the expected usage increase and the needed operational changes to accommodate everyone safely in compliance with University , IDPH , and CDC guidelines, IMSERC is reaching out to make all users of our facility aware of the SARS-CoV2/COVID-19 operational rules [updated on July 27, 2020] and policies at IMSERC, the steps needed for familiarization and training, Frequenly Asked Questions related to COVID-19 , and how to regain access to IMSERC.

Upon return-to-work, IMSERC will:

• host an online training for users (requires registration, see training sessions below ) to educate them on the new operations, followed by a pass-fail quiz for certification purposes
• institute additional reservation requirements
• place room capacity limits
  • [Revised on June 28, 2020] BG75 (NMR) room capacity increased to six: one user per NMR
  • [Revised on July 27, 2020] BG66 (Powder difraction) room capacity increased to two: one user per powder diffractometer
• have a one-way entrance, exit, and traffic pattern
• require additional PPE and sanitization procedures
• establish protocols to limit IMSERC staff and user exposure
• [revised on July 8, 2020] offer remote training on most instruments in IMSERC. Please submit your training requests as normal and we will contact you regarding your training session.
  • [June 1, 2020] NOT be training any new users in the facility until further notice (we are evaluating ways to accomplish this while maintaining social distancing requirements). For special training requests, please email IMSERC director

In the interest of everyone’s safety and to ensure compliance with and understanding of all IMSERC procedures, all Wildcard access to IMSERC will be revoked starting June 1, until completion of the training and receiving a passing grade on the quiz. IMSERC will be accessible via key-card access ONLY, even during normal working hours, until further notice.

We expect to have the majority of our users trained by June 2 and to have user access cards turned on within 48 hours of training (pending Millennium access response time). Please plan accordingly for IMSERC facility and instruments to be unavailable from June 1 – June 4 in order for us to be able to set-up the facility appropriately and complete COVID-19-specific user training.

Training process

Please view the below training link and submit the quiz following. When complete, please :

• Video Link
• Training Quiz

Following this training, please email IMSERC director   to gain access, stating you have completed the quiz with a passing grade (score of 9 or greater). You may make multiple attempts to the quiz. If you do not email IMSERC Director, you will not gain access as this is the only method by which the access database will be updated.

All of us at IMSERC are excited to get back in the lab and help facilitate the amazing research being done at Northwestern.

Due to State and University policy, IMSERC staff will be working remotely from home until at least April 7 ^th , 2020. As long as our staff remains healthy, we plan on being available for remote consultation either through email or other networking software (e.g., Zoom). If there is any other project work that we can work on off campus, please let us know, and we would more than happy to help.

In an emergency it may be possible for staff to come to campus for project work, but please note that the work must meet the requirements of the university's definition of supporting "essential research". For more information on this please see the University's March 19 ^th announcement regarding "essential workers". In any case, staff will always retain the right to choose not to come to campus in order to protect their own personal safety. Therefore, these decisions will be made on a case to case basis.