Douglas Instruments is very pleased to announce that Hoffmann – La Roche (Basel) has selected the Oryx range of robots for its new set of drop-setters for protein crystallization.  We successfully installed two Oryx4 systems and one OryxNano  at the Roche laboratories in January 2009.  This included one Oryx4 that is being used in a cold-room.

Dr. Joerg Benz said, “The Douglas Instruments Oryx range gives us the versatility that we need, and the systems have the advantage of working with very small protein samples.  They also allow us to set up microseeding experiments by the “MMS” method, which we find to be particularly effective.  And having several systems avoids any possible bottle-neck in the lab’s workflow.”

Douglas Instruments has introduced  SwissCi 2-drop and 3-drop plates (both polystyrene and UVP) to its range of products. The 2-drop polystyrene plates are the most popular, however the 3-drop plates have been redesigned and the improved version is highly recommended. Contact us for free samples. Special discounts are available for existing Oryx customers and members of the bulletin board of the Automatic Protein Crystallization Group.

Douglas Instruments has been awarded a Framework grant from the European Commission to do research into protein crystal optimization.  The OptiCryst consortium consists of seven small-to-medium enterprises and four academic institutions.  The grant will run for three years.

Douglas Instruments has announced the winner of the second round of its competition for the best new crystallization technique.  Congratulations to Bret Dillard from the University of Georgia, for his winning entry, "Automatic Protein Crystallization in an Anaerobic Environment."

Bret placed an Oryx1-6 robot in a Bactron X anaerobic chamber, and used mainly microbatch-under-oil crystallization to crystallize four proteins that are not stable in an environment with oxygen.  He found that microbatch avoided the need for frequent degassing of solutions which reduced the work-load enormously.  The oil also provided extra protection from oxidation.

One of the proteins crystallized is rubrerythrin from the hyperthermophilic archaeon, Pyrococcus furiosus.  The native protein contains iron, but is unstable in oxygen.  A previously-reported structure was determined in the presence of oxygen, but the iron had been replaced by zinc.  Using the anaerobic system, Bret has now obtained the native form containing iron.

Douglas Instruments has published a table showing the frequency of use of precipitants in protein crystallization experiments.  The data were extracted from REMARK 280 of the PDB.Ammonium sulfate was the most popular precipitant with 900 entries, followed by PEG 4K (710 entries) and PEG 8K (488 entries).  However, if you combine the medium and high molecular-weight PEGs (1968 entries) they easily outnumber ammonium sulfate.

The table also gives the average concentrations used.

Oryx took part in nano-dispensing tests at a workshop at the NKI, Netherlands.  The tests used fluorescein, and included protein mixed with 50% glycerol and 1% detergent!  The results for Oryx were comparable with the four other nano-dispensing robots tested (and in some cases significantly better). 

For example, 100 nl volumes of 6 different concentrations each of PEG 10K, PEG 3K, isopropanol and MPD were dispensed. Excluding concentrations above 45% (where some material was carried on the outside of the tip) an average of 93 nl was dispensed with a CV of 14.8%.

For the 'sticky' protein with glycerol and detergent, Oryx's CV was 13% for 20 nl drops - although such small volumes are not normally recommended!

Three members of the VIZIER program (Integrated Structural Genomics of Viral Enzymes Involved in Replication) at the Universities of Pavia, Milano and Uppsala selected Douglas Instruments' Oryx 8 robot to set up their crystallization experiments.  An important advantage of Oryx in this decision was the very low wastage of protein.

Patrick Shaw Stewart of Douglas Instruments ran a workshop at the Erice Crystallography School, Sicily, this year.  A copy of Patrick's PowerPoint presentation can be downloaded here.

Douglas Instruments is very happy to announce the winner of the first round of its competition for the best use of its Vapor Batch and Crystal Clear crystallization plates.

The prize was won by the only entrant, Dr. Lesley Haire, from the National Institute of Medical Research, London, UK.

Lesley showed that the Vapor Batch plates are ideal for growing and harvesting crystals that require volatile organic materials such as isopropanol.  Crystals of a hexameric form of the NTD of the capsid protein of N-MLV were grown by dispensing protein and PEG into wells on the Vapor Batch plate.  The drops were covered with "Al's Oils" (a 50:50 mixture of silicone and paraffin oils).  Isopropanol solution was placed in the trough around the outside of the plate, so that the isopropanol could diffuse through the oil into the drops.  This approach allowed crystals to be harvested without damage.

Douglas Instruments has introduced new scripts for Oryx which allow it to dispense sitting drop experiments down to 100 nl + 100 nl.  Much greater accuracy and more reliable dispensing is achieved by lifting up the tip a few tenths of a mm while simultaneously dispensing protein and screening solution.  (Oryx only dispenses the drops - it is not recommended for filling the reservoirs of vapor diffusion experiments.)  
 
 Existing users of Oryx should contact Douglas Instruments to obtain software that includes these scripts.

The company has announced a competition for the best research project using the new Douglas Vapor Batch Plate, or the Crystal Clear Strips.  The competition aims to encourage practical advances that are helpful to other users, original ideas, and discoveries that increase the understanding of crystallization.

Douglas Instruments has a job opportunity for a junior programmer