ArticleActa crystallographica. Section D, Structural biology2021
The low-cost Shifter microscope stage transforms the speed and robustness of protein crystal harvesting.
Article in Acta crystallographica. Section D, Structural biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers.
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Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
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- Fragment-Based Design of Targeted Covalent Inhibitors: The Scope and Limitation of Linking Approaches.ChemMedChem · 2026Article
- An integrated experimental and computational pipeline for crystallographic fragment screening of membrane protein in the lipid cubic phase.Communications chemistry · 2026Article
- CACHE Challenge #3: Targeting the Nsp3 Macrodomain of SARS-CoV-2.Journal of chemical information and modeling · 2026Article
- Gluebodies Offer a Route To Improve Crystal Reliability and Diversity through Transferable Nanobody Mutations That Introduce Constitutive Close Contacts.ACS central science · 2025Article
- Engineering SIRPα conformational plasticity to reveal a cryptic pocket suitable for structure-based drug design.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Combined crystallographic fragment screening and deep mutational scanning enable discovery of Zika virus NS2B-NS3 protease inhibitors.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Crystallographic Fragment Screening of the Dengue Virus Polymerase Reveals Multiple Binding Sites for the Development of Non-nucleoside Antiflavivirals.Journal of medicinal chemistry · 2025Article
- Structure-based discovery of inhibitors of Mac1 domain of nonstructural protein-3 of SARS-CoV-2 by machine learning-augmented screening of chemical space.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Crystallographic fragment screening reveals ligand hotspots in TRIM21 PRY-SPRY domain.Communications chemistry · 2025Article
- Identification, validation, and characterization of approved and investigational drugs interfering with the SARS-CoV-2 endoribonuclease Nsp15.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2025Article
- Status and perspective of protein crystallography at the first multi-bend achromat based synchrotron MAX IV.Journal of synchrotron radiation · 2025Article
- Present and future structural biology activities at DESY and the European XFEL.Journal of synchrotron radiation · 2025Article
- Structural Biology for Target Identification and Validation.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2025Article
- Article
- Preparing research samples for safe arrival at centers and facilities: recipes for successful experiments.Acta crystallographica. Section F, Structural biology communications · 2024Article
- Managing macromolecular crystallographic data with a laboratory information management system.Acta crystallographica. Section D, Structural biology · 2024Article
- HEIDI: an experiment-management platform enabling high-throughput fragment and compound screening.Acta crystallographica. Section D, Structural biology · 2024Article
- Regulation of inositol 5-phosphatase activity by the C2 domain of SHIP1 and SHIP2.Structure (London, England : 1993) · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Despite the tremendous success of X-ray cryo-crystallography in recent decades, the transfer of crystals from the drops in which they are grown to diffractometer sample mounts remains a manual process in almost all laboratories. Here, the Shifter, a motorized, interactive microscope stage that transforms the entire crystal-mounting workflow from a rate-limiting manual activity to a controllable, high-throughput semi-automated process, is described. By combining the visual acuity and fine motor skills of humans with targeted hardware and software automation, it was possible to transform the speed and robustness of crystal mounting. Control software, triggered by the operator, manoeuvres crystallization plates beneath a clear protective cover, allowing the complete removal of film seals and thereby eliminating the tedium of repetitive seal cutting. The software, either upon request or working from an imported list, controls motors to position crystal drops under a hole in the cover for human mounting at a microscope. The software automatically captures experimental annotations for uploading to the user's data repository, removing the need for manual documentation. The Shifter facilitates mounting rates of 100-240 crystals per hour in a more controlled process than manual mounting, which greatly extends the lifetime of the drops and thus allows a dramatic increase in the number of crystals retrievable from any given drop without loss of X-ray diffraction quality. In 2015, the first in a series of three Shifter devices was deployed as part of the XChem fragment-screening facility at Diamond Light Source, where they have since facilitated the mounting of over 120 000 crystals. The Shifter was engineered to have a simple design, providing a device that could be readily commercialized and widely adopted owing to its low cost. The versatile hardware design allows use beyond fragment screening and protein crystallography.
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