New Easily Applicable Ideas in Protein Crystallogenesis

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Technology Networks

Crystallogenesis refers to the science of crystallisation, whether it is the discovery of first principles and general laws that govern this often intractable process, or the development of novel practical methodology. Progress in this field has not been revolutionary or widely embraced by practitioners in the past few years and this is mainly due to practical limitations in applying the new findings and ideas in the context of a regular biochemical or crystallographic laboratory. This talk will present some of the most immediately applicable ideas in the field, including the design of novel strategies for high throughput screening, the use of temperature as a useful crystallisation screening and optimisation parameter, the use of substances that promote heterogeneous nucleation of protein crystals and the use of Dynamic Light Scattering and microcalorimetry for the assessment of sample suitability and for crystal optimisation. We will also focus on recent progress in nucleation theory and on how it can be related to experimental observations and advances.