CONTINUING DEVELOPMENT OF AUTOMOUNTER TECHNOLOGY

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. Primary support for the subproject and the subproject's principal investigator may have been provided by other sources, including other NIH sources. The Total Cost listed for the subproject likely represents the estimated amount of Center infrastructure utilized by the subproject, not direct funding provided by the NCRR grant to the subproject or subproject staff. Objectives The major objective stated in the recent renewal proposal was to fabricate one additional automounter, and to deploy it and an existing one. There are several minor objectives: we will create adaptors for the Rigaku Actor pucks and modify two of our automoun¿ters for Uni-Puck  Actor puck intercompatibility, we will employ data-matrix readers to automate firm identification of specimens and to provide a link between the PXDB and user's LIMS, we will develop a multilayered automounter status analysis and forecasting client, we will quicken the crystal-cap drying to shorten dead time in the crystal screening duty cycle and we will develop a fast gripper-reconditioning method to eliminate delays in payload changes. A further objective, the acquisition of robotic equipment for crystallization plate screening was not funded. Plans We are accepting the challenges put forward by our advisors, namely to again double the fraction of robotically handled specimen by all users and to encourage use of robots whenever more than 5 specimens will be tested in a session. We will continue to promote automounter use by maintaining reliable apparatus, offering loaner sets, and by demonstrating speed and ease-of-use of the system.