W0140

Crystal Monitor: The Relational Database Application for Crystal Growth. Lance Stewart and Hidong Kim. Emerald BioStructures, Inc., 7869 NE Day Rd. W, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110, USA, lance@emeraldbiostructures.com

Emerald BioStructures, Inc., has created Crystal Monitor^TM Version 2.5 (patent pending), a relational database application for high-throughput crystallization work. Crystal Monitor serves as an electronic notebook for the easy capture and analysis of macromolecular crystallization trial information and results.

Several key features of Crystal Monitor will be demonstrated, including: (1) user-definable speech recognition and audio feedback commands for quick and accurate data input, with automated plate translations being driven by a precision stage mover; (2) high-resolution digital image capture and archiving; with differential image analysis for automatic detection of crystal growth; (3) pictographical results reporting with HTML output for rapid side-by-side comparison of crystallization trial data and Web based transfer of information; (4) a pre-loaded database with all of the major commercially available crystallization screening kits and their constituent chemicals; (5) barcode tracking of crystallization plates; (6) powerful query utilities for quick identification of key trends in crystallization trials; (7) smart optimization tools that use all the available screening data; (8) interfaces to liquid handling robots that create crystallization screening solutions (E-SCREENS) and set up crystallization experiments.

Strategies will be outlined for the future integration of Crystal Monitor with leading software packages for protein X-ray crystallography. The integration of these applications will permit researchers to seamlessly track all pertinent data along the often convoluted path of protein X-ray crystal structure determination, and to perform Web-based crystallization experiments at Emerald’s Robotic High-Throughput Crystallization (RoboHTC) facility.

Further information can be found at www.emeraldbiostructures.com. A full demonstration of Crystal Monitor can be seen at the Emerald BioStructures booth in the Exhibitor’s Hall.

Work supported by NIH grant R43 GM60178-01.