Unfortunately it is unlikely that the costs for robotic equipment (at least the larger scale equipment) will come down much. It is effectively all ‘bespoke’ equipment and will never benefit from high volume manufacturing (nothing like phones or cars). How many crystallisation centres are needed around the world? Maybe 100? Nothing like the tens of millions of cars, phones, etc. Cheers, tom
From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Daniel M. Himmel, Ph. D. Sent: Friday, 27 April 2018 8:14 AM To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] What's happened over the last five years with high-throughput protein crystallization screening? I skimmed your paper, and overall it looks like a good overview of high-throughput protein crystallization. However, I was surprised that no mention was made of Formulatrix Rock Maker software, which is an excellent computer-aided graphical tool for designing crystallization screens rapidly. This software works either as a standalone or in conjunction with the Formulatrix Formulator (which the paper DOES mention), for preparing crystallization solutions, and/or an integrated system for storing crystal drops and automatically photographing them under a microscope. A great deal of experience and knowhow on high-throughput protein crystallization was accumulated by such researchers as Wladek Minor, Steve Almo, Jeff Bonanno, and others, with whom I had the privilege of working during the waning years of the "Protein Structure Initiative" and "Enzyme Function Initiative". The controversy of these projects stemmed from the high expense of the robotic equipment that made them possible, but the methodologies developed and lessons learned may be useful for high-throughput protein crystallization both in academia and industry. Hopefully the cost of the robotic equipment will come down. -Daniel On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 11:43 AM, Yibin Lin <yyb...@gmail.com<mailto:yyb...@gmail.com>> wrote: Dear CCP4BB Community, I would like to comment you guy a review of the last five years of high-throughput protein crystallization screening that would be a magnificent help for all scientists that struggle with macromolecular crystallization. Please see attachment, as well as below: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17460441.2018.1465924 Thanks. Kind regards, Frank Lin
