The Cornell Laboratory for Accelerator-based Sciences and Education (CLASSE) is a particle accelerator facility located in Wilson Laboratory on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, NY. CLASSE formed from the merger of the Cornell High-Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) and the Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics (LEPP) in July 2006[1]. Maury Tigner is the chairman of the directorate of the organization.
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The Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics (LEPP) is a High-energy physics laboratory studying fundamental particles and their interactions.
The Cornell High-Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) is a high-intensity, high-energy X-ray light source. The lab provides synchrotron radiation facilities for multidisciplinary scientific research, with a particular focus on protein crystallographic studies under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
CHESS was built between 1978 and 1980 as a synchrotron x-ray facility tied to the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR) High-Energy Physics program (sometimes referred to, and better known as, particle physics), which produces an electron energy of 5.5 GeV.[2]
"The original laboratory, CHESS West, included 3 instrumented beamlines [with] 6 independent experimental stations.
"The CHESS East laboratory was constructed during 1988-1989, adding 2 beam lines [...] and 4 instrumented experimental stations. CHESS East contains a biohazard level BL3 facility (built with funds from the NIH) [....]
"Construction began in 1999 for an addition to the facility" to provide a new beam line and three additional experimental stations. This station, commissioned in 2002, was "constructed with extensive toxic gas handling capabilities advancing the prospects for in-situ crystal growth experiments."[3]
Work performed at CHESS and at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) at Brookhaven National Laboratory garnered a split of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Dr. Roderick MacKinnon, M.D.[4]