TAOS - AN AUTOMATIC SYSTEM FOR PROTEIN CRYSTALLIZATION

TAOS is a fully automatic system for protein crystallization. Based on a central five-axis robot, it performs vapour-diffusion experiments i n commercially available plates with three types of drop geometry, i.e . hanging, sitting or sandwich drops. It can handle ten crystallizatio n plates (up to 240 tests) and prepare precipitant solutions from up t o ten different components with no operator intervention. Software hel p in preparing crystallization experiments and full archiving are prov ided. TAOS has been thoroughly tested for accuracy and reproducibility .