We checked for phycocyanin crystals. All wells had great bluish crystals that resembled hairs or nails depending upon your perspective. We decided to wait before putting those through the x-ray machine in the hopes that they would grow even larger. As such, we used our lysozyme crystals for x-ray diffration and watched the x-ray machine work as observers since that is a more dangerous piece of equipment. The first crystal gave a relatively poor diffraction pattern despite its look on the outside. I guess- in crystals- as well as in people- it's whats in the inside that counts. We then waited for the next pattern and while we did that, we took more pictures of these new crystals using the microscope camera once again, only this time we took pictures of all wells. Tomorrow, we will be diffracting the crystals under cryo conditions- i.e. liquid nitrogen or propane- in the hopes that this will help the crystals retain more moisture. However, too much humidity is also a problem so it is like Goldilock's theorem where you have to get it "just right." My question is this: how do you get this beautiful colorful picture of the structure of these membrane proteins showing the symmetry and ribbon-like structure of the amino acids? That is the question that I will ask next and possibly do some independent research upon myself as well.
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