The Macromolecular Crystallography Research Center (MCRC) is located in Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
The main goal of the MCRC is to provide support for laboratories within the Department of Life Science and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev who are interested in structural information as part of their research goals. A three dimensional structure provides internal details of the protein and may provide information helpful in deciphering the structure/function relationship of the macromolecule under consideration. One of the most effective and widespread technique for structure determination of macromoloecules is X-ray Crystallography, which requires high-quality crystals.
The main bottleneck in structural research is the obtaining of well-diffracted macromolecular crystals. Obtaining such crystals is a crucial step on the way to structure determination. This goal can be accomplished by the fully automated protein crystallization process provided by the MCRC, starting from the design of the experiment and finishing with imaging of the crystallization plates under a user-defined schedule. This process saves time and material as it is relies on robotics which use tiny amounts of a sample.
For crystal-screening and data collection, we operate a X-ray generator with an image plate area detector. In addition, we maintain all of the computer hardware and software needed for structure determination and analysis.