I'll toot my own horn for a bit here. There is a comprehensive review on the topic:
Macromolecular Crystallization in Microgravity, Reports on progress in Physics, Vol 68, Number 4, 2005, 799- by Snell and Helliwell. http://iopscience.iop.org/0034-4885/68/4/R02 I'll agree completely with Jan and also make the point that Brownian motion is a very persuasive force at the short range levels associated with resolution. Reduced acceleration reduces convection and in the majority of cases results in larger crystals with reduced mosaicity. Resolution can be enhanced somewhat by exploiting this but it could be argued that it is a much better investment overall to play with molecular biology techniques or a more brilliant beamline. However, if you are going to be in space anyway, it's a small mass, automated payload, potential high payoff etc... Cheers, Eddie Edward Snell Ph.D. Assistant Prof. Department of Structural Biology, SUNY Buffalo, Senior Scientist, Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute 700 Ellicott Street, Buffalo, NY 14203-1102 Phone: (716) 898 8631 Fax: (716) 898 8660 Skype: eddie.snell Email: esn...@hwi.buffalo.edu Telepathy: 42.2 GHz Heisenberg was probably here! -----Original Message----- From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:ccp...@jiscmail.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Jan Dohnalek Sent: Monday, May 10, 2010 3:18 AM To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Micro-g Crystal Growth and the literature Some parameters can be improved BUT the real bottlenecks of the field are in 1. Getting a target soluble at a high concentration. 2. Getting crystals AT ALL. 3. Getting decent diffraction data that then lead hopefully to structure solution. No 1 and 2 are the most critical. Space crystallisation does not overcome either of those. Jan On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 5:49 AM, Jack Reynolds <jdr7...@yahoo.com> wrote:
