The University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine

Protein Crystallography Facility

Facility Instrumentation

The crystallography facility offers a wide variety of instrumentation including facilities for x-ray data collection, dynamic light scattering, crystallization and data manipulation.

Dynamic Light Scattering

  • DynaPro (Protein Solutions/Wyatt Technology) with temperature control

Crystallization Instruments

  • Tecan Genesis liquid handler RSP 150/8 for crystallization well solutions preparations
  • TTP LabTech Mosquito for setting up crystallization drops
  • Imaging system for visualizing crystallization drops post set-up

X-ray Instrumentation

  • Rotating anode (RU-H3R) Rigaku generator (1.54Å)
  • R-AXIS IV++ Rigaku x-ray detector
  • Rigaku X-stream for cryogenic (100K) data collection
  • 4DX Systems Microspectrophotometer for absorbtion measurements on single crystals

Synchrotron Access

  • The Carver College of Medicine has invested a 1/10 share in the 4.2.2 synchrotron beam line located at the Advanced Light Source in the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The synchrotron is tuned to produce high intensity x-ray radiation and the beam line end station is set up to collect x-ray diffraction data to determine three-dimensional structures of proteins that are hard to carry out at home. Reserved time is available at this remote facility and will enable researchers to perform crystallographic structure determinations faster at much higher quality.

Data Workstations and Storage

  • Linux and Unix-based workstations with stereo 3-D capability for processing and visualization are available for investigator use.
  • A rack-mounted multi-Terabyte system acts as a file server for all diffraction data collected. It's hot swappable drives also provide convenient archival capability for users. A rack-mounted Tripp Lite SmartPro UPS ensures surge protection and automatic shutdown of the file server in the event of a power failure .

Three-Dimensional Projection System

  • VR-Dual 1000 stereoscopic 3-D projector system for presentations and teaching