Design and Development of a Robot-Based Automation System for Cryogenic Crystal Sample Mounting at the Advanced Photon Source
Shu, D.; Preissner, C.; Nocher, D.; Han, Y.; Barraza, J.; Lee, P.; Lee, W.-K.; Cai, Z.; Ginell, S.; Alkire, R.; Lazarski, K.; Schuessler, R.; Joachimiak, A.
SYNCHROTRON RADIATION INSTRUMENTATION: Eighth International Conference on Synchrotron Radiation Instrumentation. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 705, pp. 1201-1204 (2004).
X-ray crystallography is the primary method to determine the 3D structures of complex macromolecules at high resolution. In the years to come, the Advanced Photon Source (APS) and similar 3rd-generation synchrotron sources elsewhere will become the most powerful tools for studying atomic structures of biological molecules. One of the major bottlenecks in the x-ray data collection process is the constant need to change and realign the crystal sample. This is a very time- and manpower-consuming task. An automated sample mounting system will help to solve this bottleneck problem. We have developed a novel robot-based automation system for cryogenic crystal sample mounting at the APS. Design of the robot-based automation system, as well as its on-line test results at the Argonne Structural Biology Center (SBC) 19-BM experimental station, are presented in this paper.
Keywords: sample holders, automation, cryogenics, X-ray apparatus, synchrotron radiation, X-ray crystallography, macromolecules, molecular configurations
DOI: 10.1063/1.1758015
The ADS is Operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory under NASA Grant NNX09AB39G
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