Announcement of an Exempt Purchase

Membership dues to the Life Sciences Collaborative Access Team (LS-CAT) for UIC researchers. LS-CAT offers macromolecular crystallography data, facilitated by Northwestern University, to help determine protein structures and advance UIC's research mission. As LS-CAT member UIC researchers have access to state-of-the-art x-ray diffraction facilities at Argonne National Laboratorys Advanced Photon Sources where extremely intense beams of x-rays are focused using both mirrors and beryllium lenses into tiny protein crystals.

This purchase is exempt from the usual selection processes of the Procurement Code because the procurement expenditure is for membership in professional, academic, research, or athletic organizations on behalf of a public institution of higher education, an employee of a public institution of higher education, or a student at a public institution of higher education. (30 ILCS 500 / 1-13(b)(1)) This membership is in the best interest of the University to advance its research mission. The Life Sciences Collaborative Access Team (LS-CA) provides macromolecular crystallography data for UIC researchers who need to determine the structure of proteins.