If I understand you correctly, you are writing about sucking a crystal up into a small capillary. This is an ancient technique used with the very first protein crystal diffraction data collection in the 1950s and 1960s that is still used today. You can use a small 1 ml plastic syringe for the positive/negative pressure if you connect it to the capillary by a small piece of rubber tubing.
There has even been a least one paper published on freezing crystals in such capillaries. Jim _____ From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:ccp...@jiscmail.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Jacob Keller Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 2:43 PM To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: [ccp4bb] Crystal vacuum cleaner Dear Crystallographers, Has anybody ever heard of mounting crystals in tiny crystal-sized capillaries, such as are pulled by patch-pipet machines, or those used in microfluidics? The material could be either glass or plastic, and one could have some method of continuous positive or negative pressure, perhaps through a hole in the crystal cap. Anyway, once safely inside the tiny capilary, one could freeze it at leisure, without concern for evaporation. It would really make harvesting easy--just vacuum up the crystal, then plop in LiqN2/propane as per usual. I guess it could also really be done with appropriate modification of a micro-manipulator. Jacob ******************************************* Jacob Pearson Keller Northwestern University Medical Scientist Training Program Dallos Laboratory F. Searle 1-240 2240 Campus Drive Evanston IL 60208 lab: 847.491.2438 cel: 773.608.9185 email: j-kell...@northwestern.edu *******************************************
