Background

Advances in high-throughput methods for crystallography have evolved to automate the full process from crystallization setup to correctly traced electron density maps. Enabling these methods is a pipeline of reliable hardware and software developed to work with limited human intervention. One such tool, the ACTOR™ (Automated Crystal Transport, Orientation, and Retrieval) system, has been in use since 2001 and eliminates many of the time-consuming sample manipulation tasks required in routine crystal screening and data collection. Supplemental ACTOR software for ranking, data collection strategy determination and image processing further increases the value of ACTOR by way of an intelligent framework for automated X-ray diffraction experiments.