Robots Enter the Race to Analyze Proteins

Abstract

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA—Structural biologists are about to get a helping hand in their effort to map the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms in proteins. Earlier this week, researchers at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) here were scheduled to begin using a new robot to automate the laborious process of mounting protein crystals in a synchrotron's x-ray beamline and then collecting and analyzing the data. Once fully operational, the robot could boost the number of protein structures that can be solved at a beamline nearly 10-fold to about 1000 per year. A similar setup is also gearing up at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France. With these and other robotic systems now on the drawing boards, the throughput of protein structures is poised to make a revolutionary jump.