Core Facility for Structural Biology
The MPIterMic also cooperates with the Marburg core facility for Interactions, Dynamics and biomolecular Assembly Structure at the Center for Synthetic Microbiology (SYNMIKRO).
Research in molecular biology and interpretation of biochemical data strongly benefit from structural insights into biological macromolecules. The MarXtal crystallization facility provides access to state-of-the-art crystallization robotics in high-throughput mode in order to support structure determination by crystallographic methods. At the beginning of a crystallographic project, the MarXtal facility provides support for the design of protein constructs suitable for crystallization trials. Once purified protein constructs are available, up to 1,300 crystallization experiments at nanoliter format could be performed at different temperatures. For this purpose, high-throughput devices such as a Honeybee963TM crystallization robot and two Formulatrix RockImagerTM are available. After successful initial crystallization, the interested collaborator is supported with respect to optimization of the initial crystals, data collection, structure determination and interpretation of the achieved structural results.