Its all crystal clear
11 Jan 2006 by Evoluted New Media
Scientists are on the verge of discovering the ‘holy grail’ of crystallography with a new technique based on glass
Scientists are on the verge of discovering the ‘holy grail’ of crystallography with a new technique based on glass.
Crystallisation is the process which converts materials, such as proteins, into three dimensional crystals, thus enabling their atomic structure to be studied.
The team, from Imperial College London and the University of Surrey, developed the technique based on the fact that the porous structure of a material - known as a nucleant - traps the protein molecules and encourages them to crystallise.
Professor Naomi Chayen, from Imperial College London, who led the research, 
told laboratory news: “The first step in obtaining a good crystal is to get it to nucleate in an ordered way. The ‘holy grail’ is to find a ‘universal nucleant’ which would induce crystallisation of any protein.”
They tested the technique using BioGlass, a substance developed by Imperial’s material scientists, as a scaffold to trap and encourage the growth of protein crystals. BioGlass is a porous material, with a variety of different size pores able to trap different size proteins.
“Although there has been considerable research in search of a universal nucleant, this is the first time we have designed one which works on a large number of materials,” said Professor Chayen.
As the three dimensional structure of the crystals indicates the proteins function, researchers are hopeful that the use of BioGlass will speed up development of new medicines and treatments.
