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Easier Way to Convert Proteins into Crystals
Roland Piquepaille writes "As you might know, proteins need to be transformed into 3-D crystals before their atomic structures and their properties can be analyzed. And production of high quality crystals from proteins has been a difficult task until now. But scientists in the U.K. have successfully used a porous medium, or 'nucleant,' a material that encourages protein molecules to crystallize. Their first step towards 'holy grail' of crystallography could help speed up the development of new medicines and treatments."
...using Kleenex for the nucleation process.
To find the three-d structure by x-ray crystallography, you have to crystallize the protein. Actually doing so, with different proteins, is an astoundingly difficult task, so much so that something like five Nobel prizes have been given for research into crystallization and x-ray crystallography development, and another ten or so Nobels given for determination of three-d structure of various proteins were, in essence, awarded for getting the protein to crystallize.
Side story: there was a famous German chemist named Emil Fischer, who originally determined the structures of a bunch of sugars. That was, again, largely a crystallization problem. He had, as Germans did in the 1890's, an enormous beard, and was playing with chemicals all day long, which tended to condense in his beard. It was said that if you could not get something to crystallize out of solution, no matter what you did, you asked Fischer to come to your lab and fluff his beard over your beaker, and the seed crystals falling from it were of such variety that one was almost guaranteed to be correct for your particular situation and get it to crystallize. So this isn't exactly NEW technology.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
I observe this phenomenon all the time on top of my uncleaned plates in the kitchen sink :)
Or, if you want to convert crystals to protein, buy a girl some diamonds and see what she does to thank you...