Busy, busy, busy, but check these little guys out! I need to figure out some conditions to separate the little bundles into individual crystals, but we're definitely getting somewhere. Think happy thoughts about X-ray diffraction.
They're not actually pretty colors like this, I'm afraid. This picture was taken with polarized light. The crystals are pretty much transparent in real life. The little flecks of crud are precipitated protein. The trick lies in getting the protein to crystallize before it crashes out.
I've been instructed to obtain a cat whisker, since that's what you use to manipulate protein crystals. Who knew? Perhaps there's a future in cat ranching for the crystallography trade. Structural genomics is all the rage these days.
P.S. Despite bouncing last season, Jorge's B12 grant (which pays for my project) scored NIH funding for the next 4 years. Woo-hoo! It's good to be funded.
3 comments:
and how, exactly, do you propose to get a cat whisker from tobu or kaiyo? i can't imagine they're too interested in furthering science.
My cats shed whiskers all the time. Want me to send you some?
Anita figured she could harvest one or two from each of her patients without anyone noticing, really...
I think I actually only need one, so I should be able to scrounge one up somewhere without too much trouble. Thanks for the offer, though.
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