Biomacromolecular Crystallography Facility


A Rigaku RU-200 rotating anode serves as an X-ray source for a Siemens X-1000 multiwire X-ray area detector on a 4-circle goniostat with a graphite monochromator and a MSC R-Axis II image plate area detector with an Osmic Kirkpatrick-Baez "Max-Flux" focusing mirror set.


A Siemens Direct Drive rotating anode serves as an X-ray source for aSiemens Hi-Star X-ray area detector with Osmic Kirkpatrick-Baez "Max-Flux"focusing mirrors; this X-ray source is 5-15 times more intense than conventional laboratory sources.


Also see the Small Molecule Crystallography Service page.


The Biochemistry/Chemistry shared facility for Biomacromolecular Crystallography is located on the 2nd floor of the Chemistry Building. The facility has over 1500 sq. ft. of space and houses state-of-the-art instrumentation for X-ray diffraction analysis of biomacromolecules.

There is the usual ancillary equipment expected in a X-ray crystallographic laboratory including crystal cooling systems for cryocrystallography at liquid nitrogen temperatures. These systems allow us to flash freeze crystals for X-ray diffraction experiments.

A cluster of computer workstations and hard disk arrays allow the on-site data collection and processing as well as remote data processing.

For more information on the current research programs see faculty research pages for:

R. Michael Garavito (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology)
Jennifer Ekstrom (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology)
James Geiger (Chemistry)
Dennis Arvidson (Microbiology and Molecular Genetics).


The computational resources available for Biomacromolecular Crystallography within the Department of Biochemistry include a series of SGI graphics workstations, all clustered using the NFS protocols. The laboratory is etherneted to the building and campus network and additional computer resources are provided by the Department of Biochemistry Macromolecular Computing Facility that houses several suites of programs (e.g. the Biosym suite, O, XtalView, Setor, Grasp, and Sculpt) and a full-time system/software manager).