omation mbers - Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening

9:00 am Wednesday, February 4 Proteomics – Structural Room B1
John A. Adams
RoboDesign International, Inc.
5120 Pasteur Court
Carlsbad, California 92008
jadams@robodesign.com
Automated Protein Crystallization System
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Co-Author(s)
Janet M. Newman, David W. Jewell,
John K. Hoffman, Mandel W. Mickley
A complete, intermediate-sized (1100 plates), dual temperature, automated protein crystallization platform
consisting of automated small-volume pipetting, automatic plate incubation, storage and retrieval, automatic drop
imaging, database cataloging, analysis and classification, plus a closed-loop crystal trial experiment and trial
optimization database that seamlessly connects all of the sub-system software and hardware. This system enables
users to set up initial screens using standard screen blocks or to make custom initial screens, automatically make
the experimental plates and have them transferred into incubation, imaged, analyzed, and classified based upon a
user defined schedule. These results form the basis for an intelligent platform that can be used to more quickly and
efficiently determine optimal protein crystal growth conditions.
9:30 am Wednesday, February 4 Proteomics – Structural Room B1
Brent Segelke
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
7000 East Avenue
Livermore, California 94551
segelke1@llnl.gov
Automated Combinatorial Protein Crystallization Screening
Co-Author(s)
Dominique Toppani, Tim Lekin, Bernhard Rupp
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Mary Cornett, Joel McComb
Innovadyne Technologies, Inc.
By considering crystal screening as a sampling problem, we have previously demonstrated, by probability theory,
the inherent efficiency of stochastic combinatorial screening (Segelke, J. Crystal Growth 2000). While efficient in
principal, stochastic combinatorial screening is difficult to automate in practice. Robotic liquid handling instruments
are generally designed for high throughput mother-daughter transfers or for lower throughput, though versatile, rearraying.
A new 96-tip, non-contact, liquid handling instrument by Innovdyne makes high throughput automated
crystallization screening, on the fly, possible. The instrument is equipped with 96, independently actuated, noncontact,
nano-dispensing tips. The Independent actuation enables any source any destination liquid handling.
With a software experimental design engine, CRYSTOOL, aspirate/dispense operations are generated on the
fly and passed to the instrument at run-time. Stock reagents arrayed in 96-well deep well blocks are aspirated
simultaneously and dispensed in the random order and volume prescribed by worklists generated by the design
engine. The instrument also maintains high precision over a broad range of volumes and viscosities, delivering
exceptional versatility for types, concentrations, and ratios of components used in custom combinatorial screens.
The same instrument can be used for rapid setup of vapor diffusion or microbatch crystallization experiments from
premade screens or for the setup of grid optimization screens.
PODIUM ABSTRACTS