Al's Oil on the plates: What a nightmare!!!!!!! The oil creeps up the plate and over the sides. It dissolves adhesives. It makes me say bad words in multiple languages. Bigger drops + no oil = fewer bad words.
Lisa -- Lisa A. Nagy, Ph.D. University of Alabama-Birmingham [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Patrick Shaw Stewart Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 2:20 AM To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: [ccp4bb] Fwd: [ccp4bb] crystallisation robot One thing that people often overlook is that quite a lot of protein can be lost by denaturation on the surface of the drop. This is more significant for smaller drops. Two suggestions: (1) increase the proportion of protein in the - technical term - teeny drop to say two thirds and (2) cover the drops with oil eg Al's oils (silicone/paraffin). You still get vapor diffusion though the oil , and you'd like to slow up equilibration. of course (2) slows up the robotics a little, but both should be trivial to set up..
