DESCCRIPTION: Applicant?s abstract) An integrated, automated protein crystallization system,RoboHTC (Robotic High-Throughput Crystallization), will be developed, consisting of software and hardware tools suitable for large-scale protein crystallography projects, such as structural genomics. These tools will also be highly modular, allowing individual home laboratories to use one or more components of the system as their needs demand. These tools will address current problems in crystallization, the rate-limiting step in protein crystallography, following isolation and purification of the target protein. We will also be integrating these tools with a Web-based Java applet to allow researchers to order custom crystallization solutions. This will alleviate researchers from having to make their own crystallization screens, which is presently one of the most tedious tasks in protein crystallization. The entire crystallographic community stands to benefit from the proposed research. As part of the further development of our crystallization database software, we will implement features to allow researchers to easily transfer crystallization data to and from the Protein Data Bank. These publicly accessible crystallization data can then guide other researchers in their crystallization efforts. As protein crystallography becomes an increasingly important aspect of biological research, the proposed tools will make protein crystal structure determination a more routine part of any biological research program.
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