Advanced beamline automation for biological crystallography experiments

An automated crystal- mounting/ alignment system has been developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and has been installed on three of the protein- crystallography experimental stations at the Advanced Light Source ( ALS); it is currently being implemented at synchrotron crystallography beamlines at CHESS, NSLS and the APS. The benefits to using an automounter system include ( i) optimization of the use of synchrotron beam time, ( ii) facilitation of advanced data- collection techniques, ( iii) collection of higher quality data, ( iv) reduction of the risk to crystals and ( v) exploration of systematic studies of experimental protocols. Developments on the next- generation automounter with improvements in robustness, automated alignment and sample tracking are under way, with an end- to- end data- flow process being developed to allow remote data collection and monitoring.