Drug Discovery and Proteomics with the CrystalPro
In order to understand and ultimately cure disease, many researchers have employed a crystallization method to their proteins. Once a protein is crystallized, an X-Ray beam is diffracted as it passes through the crystal, yielding information about the atomic structure of the protein. This information is then analyzed and the protein's structure is solved. Then, scientists can develop the necessary drugs to interact with this protein to produce the desired effect in the body, thus curing the disease in the patient.

The crystallization process is a very tricky one. It involves fine-tuning complex chemical recipes to produce crystals of suitable size and quality - the fewer inclusions in a crystal, the better the X-Ray diffraction pattern it will produce. These recipes are honed on a large scale with high-throughput dispensing robots which deposit the protein and various chemical reagents of differing concentrations into multi-well plastic trays. Then high-throughput imaging robots acquire images of each well in these trays to track reagent reactivity and eventually crystal growth. The CrystalPro protein crystal imaging system acquires such images with high resolution and quality. These images are stored in a powerful laboratory information management system, CrystalLIMS, with each image's associated chemical recipes. This extensive database allows researchers to define and refine recipes while automatic scheduling of image acquisition facilitates crystal growth tracking. Researchers are able to score each image under review and thus identify growth trends quickly.

For more information, visit http://proteincrystalimaging.com