I know this is not what you ask for, but I have had good experience with mounting in capillaries (borosilicate, a bit stronger than quartz, but quartz should work also if you are very careful), leaving the crystals in the mother liquid, to fly them over by FEDex from USA to Europe. Leave the capillaries at the longest length possible, so that someone at the synchrotron can open the capillary and push the crystal out of the liquid and close again the capillary, or even push the crystal out and remount the crystal in a different way. For the flights, I left the cappilaries pending a little loosely in the air, with their ends stuck into cotton balls, into a smaller box, that on its turn was fixed shock-damping stuff into a strong, uncrushable box. Cheap, quick and easy!
Julie >Dear all, > >Sorry for the non CCP4 questions. We would like to ship some virus crystals to >a synchrotron at room temperature (for room temperature diffraction). I am >wondering if anybody has ever had any good experience for this kind of >shipping. Especially, it would be great if anybody has any good ideas other >than pre-mounting the crystals in quartz capillaries (I won't be driving from >Houston to Chicago though :D). I would also like to know more about the things >that I need to pay extra attention to, if I have to deal with capillaries. Any >suggestions would be greatly appreciated. > >I'm now testing the more convenient MiTeGen MicroMounts. However, I am not >sure whether the crystals can remain resting on the MicroMounts aperture >during the course of a typical Fedex shipping (according to the MicroMounts >instruction sheet, crystals should not be trapped in the aperture). It would >be great if anybody would share your previous experience with regard to the >MiTeGen stuff. > >Another question about the MiTeGen mounting tools is that I always observe a >stong diffraction ring at about 5 A. Well, it is not exactly a ring; it's >actually two thick arches (pretty thick, roughly from 5.5 A to 4.8 A), one at >the top and the other at the bottom of the diffraction patterns (nothing on >the left-hand or right-hand side). Does anybody have any idea what this might >be (fiber?)? > >thanks a lot for your help! > >Junhua >--- >Junhua Pan >Department of Biochemistry & Cell Biology >327 Keck Hall, Rice University >6100 Main Street MS-140 >Houston, TX 77005 >Phone: (713)348-3346 >Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
