FORMU­LATRIX ROCK IMAGER

University of Salzburg

Salzburg | Website

Open for Collaboration

Short Description

ROCK IMAGER is designed for protein crystallization screening. It captures superior quality images of your protein drops while learning critical information about your crystals. It can screen conditions with various imaging methods to discover more crystals, using visible light, UV fluorescence, and UV absorption, among others. Imaging is carried out under precise temperature control from 30°C down to 4°C.

Contact Person

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Hans Brandstetter

Research Services

Time-resolved and temperature-controlled monitoring
Documentation and AI-assisted evaluation of crystallisation preparations in microtitre plate format

Methods & Expertise for Research Infrastructure

The ROCK IMAGER is used to identify protein crystals, the bottleneck in the elucidation of crystal structures.
The instrument allows automated, depth-focused microscopy of protein crystallisation plates, i.e. the microscopy images at different z-layers of the drop are added together. The growth and microscopic monitoring of the protein crystallisation preparations is carried out at a controlled ambient temperature and at definable time intervals, so that the growth kinetics of crystal preparations can also be resolved and thus optimised. Finally, microscopy is carried out not only in the visible but also in the UV range. The combination of these wavelengths allows efficient and partially automated crystal detection in front of large amorphous or low-molecular crystal backgrounds.

Allocation to research infrastructure

Chemical and Structural Biology