Protein structure determination is a current bottleneck in attempts to understand complex biochemical pathways and develop new pharmaceuticals. Current methods for obtaining and studying crystals involve "guess-and-check" procedures and often do not produce crystals large enough to study using X-rays diffraction. Besides being time consuming, these methods further exacerbate the bottleneck by requiring significant amounts of proteins, possibly exceeding availability. This project combines chemically modified surfaces with micro channel technology to create a prototype device to yield sufficiently sized lysozyme crystals from small amounts of solution.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Rudis, Christie Ann
• Holmes, Walter F.

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• 06D443M

Advisor

• MacDonald, John C.
• Thompson, Robert W.

Year

• 2006

Date created

• 2006-01-01

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Chemical Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright