Crystallographers receive a boost

Melbourne's protein crystallographers have received a boost with the recent acquisition of a $AUD720,000 X-ray Crystallography generator system at the Austin Research Institute (ARI).

And according to ARI Director Prof Mark Hogarth, the facility is not restricted to ARI use. "It's a part of the Victorian Institute of Biotechnology, the joint venture between the ARI and the Victorian University of Technology," he said.

The system also has the capacity to expand, said Hogarth, noting that it would be more cost-effective to expand the capabilities of the existing instrument by adding a second detector than to purchase another one. And it will also complement the Australian National Synchrotron, by providing a source to screen crystals before moving on to the even more sensitive synchrotron. In the past ARI scientists have used other instruments at CSIRO and other research institutions, also travelling to Chicago to use the Synchrotron there.

But the immediate benefit to the protein crystallography community is the speed and quality of results from the instrument.

The new system is capable of generating a high intensity beam, allowing researchers to use very small crystals, down to 50 microns, to get very high quality information, said Dr Paul Ramsland, the head of the Helen Macpherson Smith Structural Immunology Laboratory at the ARI. Previously, researchers using older machines could get down as far as 100 micron crystals, he said.

And smaller crystals mean shorter times to get results, explained Hogarth, who estimated that the analysis time was cut by around 90-95 per cent.

"One of the rate limiting steps is getting crystals of the right quality and size. We can use smaller crystals so it speeds it up a lot, there is less effort required to get the crystals," he said. "We can do in weeks what used to take a year."

The ARI will be using the system to examine proteins of interest in a variety of its research programs, including its study of anti-inflammatory proteins, cancer vaccines, and cell surface molecules.

"Together with other Australian and international researchers we are growing crystals of proteins from our immune systems called Fc receptors and antibodies. These 3-D structures are being used to develop new treatments for inflammation and autoimmune diseases," said Ramsland.

Hogarth said it took three years to raise the funds required for the instrument, using collaborative funding from a variety of trusts and foundations including the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust, the Ian Potter Foundation, the Jack Brockhoff Foundation, the Urquart Foundation, the Ronald Geoffry Arnott Foundation and the Scobie and Claire MacKinnon Trust.