Protein structure studies at the double
the process of high-throughput protein crystallography, a key
process in the identification of protein structure and function.
The co-marketing agreement will see the two companies promoting Bruker's Crystal Farm system, developed in tandem with Discovery Partners International and used for the incubation and imaging of crystalline structures, alongside Formulatrix's Rock Maker software.
The Crystal Farm is the first integrated incubation and imaging system for protein crystallization to be offered to the crystallography community. It automates many of the tedious laboratory processes required to obtain highly pure protein crystals, an important step in rational drug design. The Crystal farm combines a 400 plate capacity, environmentally controlled incubator and DPI's patent pending "cool flash" imaging technology.
Meanwhile, Rock Maker is a scalable software package that automates and tracks the entire protein crystallisation process, including experiment design, liquid dispensing, plate storage and retrieval, and imaging. It can be integrated with virtually any liquid handler, plate storage and retrieval and imaging system.
"By controlling both the liquid handling robotics and the incubation and optical scanning in the Crystal Farm, the Rock Maker software 'closes the loop' to allow crystallisation conditions to be rapidly scanned and then optimised," said Roger Durst, chief technology officer for Bruker.
