Protein Crystallization & Protein Crystallography Services

A Brief History of Protein Crystallography

Protein crystallization and protein crystallography is the oldest method for structure determination at atomic resolution. It won't be an exaggeration to state that this method created the foundation of structural biology and provided valuable and deep insights into the mechanisms of function of organisms at the molecular level. Various areas of biological sciences benefited from structural insights, and among these is, of course, drug discovery.

The history of X-ray crystallography started with the discovery of X-rays by Conrad Röntgen (
Nobel Prize in Physics, 1901). The electromagnetic nature of X-rays and the physical principles of X-ray diffraction were discovered later by Max von Laue (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1914), while the foundation for X-ray crystallography was laid by William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg (father and son, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1915). Later, starting from determining the first protein crystal structure (Nobel Prize to Max Perutz & John Kendrew, 1962), many Nobel Prizes were awarded to discoveries based on protein crystallography.

CROs providing protein crystallization and protein crystallography services are a relatively new phenomenon. This became possible after the impressive developments in the 1990-ties, which made protein structure determination much more efficient and affordable. SARomics Biostructures, since its foundation in 2006, has served the community and accumulated broad experience in handling different structural biology projects.

Here we give an overview of the typical workflow of our protein crystallization and protein crystallography services. The experiments include but are not limited to
gene-to-structure X-ray crystallography, antibody and antibody-antigen crystallization and structure analysis, protein-ligand crystallization and structure determination. You may contact us through the contact form to inquire about our services.

A presentation of the BioMAX beamlien at the MAX IV sychrotron radiation facility in Lund