Automating crystal harvesting and mounting for high-throughput macromolecular crystallography

To facilitate high-throughput macromolecular crystallography, there is a need to develop techniques and devices for automatic and rapid crystal handling. In this paper, we propose a novel manipulation protocol to realize an effective automated crystal harvesting and mounting system. We first discuss different vision-based object tracking and focus-based localization algorithms, which are essential in the crystal manipulation process. A capillary-loop coordinating mechanism is then presented for mounting the crystal for X-ray diffractometry. Experimental results using the proposed algorithms and mechanism are presented which are encouraging for the development of a fully automated crystal harvesting and mounting system.