National Crystallization Center

The National Crystallization Center was awarded an NIH NIGMS R24 grant to become a National Resource for crystallography in 2021.  As the National Crystallization Center, we support academic, government, and non-profit research institutes, providing unique protein crystallization services for structural biology. Since it began operations in February 2000, the Crystallization Center has set up over 25 million crystallization experiments on more than 18,000 biological macromolecules for almost 2,000 laboratories worldwide. Macromolecular crystallization services at UB-HWI enable experiments that are monitored with state-of-the-art imaging techniques, empowering the detection of crystals that other techniques miss

• Expert staff – Dr. Sarah EJ Bowman has been directing the Center since being recruited to UB-HWI in 2017 and works with a growing team of scientists that have been doing structural biology for close to two decades. Learn more about our team.
• State-of-the-art instrumentation – Brightfield (visual), second-order harmonic, and UV-two photon excited fluorescence techniques in a Rock Imager 1000 with SONICC are used, so no crystal is missed.
• Timely access – Runs are scheduled in advance on a monthly basis with multiple setup windows.
• A history of success – The Center has worked with academic, non-profit, government and industry users, and has screened over 18,000 proteins for over 2,000 laboratories worldwide.

• Announcing the 2026 Applied Crystallization Workshop!  Applications are open for two intensive, on-site crystallization workshops in the National Crystallization Center.  More details on the flier or in User Announcements.
• As of Dec 11, 2025, there is a RAR compatibility issue for Windows 10/11. If you use Windows, please download the patched version of MARCO Polo that supports the newere RAR 5 archives.
• With the new website, the new submission form is live!  Please use the link below to provide details about your sample. If you run into any difficulties, please reach out via email to us at getacrystal@buffalo.edu.
• Interested in optimizing your crystal hits at the National Crystallization Center? We are looking for commissioning users!  Please reach out to us at getacrystal@buffalo.edu if you want to learn more.
• Generation 22 of the 1536 high-throughput screen started in September 2024.  To download the most up-to-date Marco Polo to view and score your images, click here to get to the GitHub page with version 0.2.1!
• What’s the best way to send your sample for crystallization screening?  Here’s a new paper we recently put together with colleagues from synchrotrons and cryoEM centers to provide guidance on this topic!
• The Summer 2024 Workshops are finished, and we’ve posted the virtual Applied Crystallization Workshop video on YouTube!
  
• New paper and video out in Journal of Visualized Experiments highlighting the experimental protocols in the Crystallization Center.
• New paper out in Acta D describing the Crystallization Center operations.

Check the above schedule and reserve a spot in the queue for an upcoming crystallization screening run by emailing getacrystal@buffalo.edu.  When you are ready to send your sample (to arrive during the package acceptance dates) please fill out the submission form and email tracking details for your shipment.

1,536 non-redundant crystallization conditions are used to screen your sample using the microbatch-under-oil method, providing an efficient sampling of chemical parameter space.  Each condition is imaged using state-of-the-art Formulatrix Rock Imagers over a period of six weeks. Imaging modalities include visual (brightfield) and Second-Order Non-linear Imaging of Chiral Crystals (SONICC), which includes Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) and UV-Two Photon Excited Fluorescence (UV-TPEF) imaging. SHG and UV-TPEF imaging can identify biological crystals not picked up visually or those obscured by precipitate. Brightfield, SHG, and UV-TPEF images are integrated with analysis software provided as part of the crystallization screening service.

We are grateful that NIH funding enables us to provide efficient high-throughput crystallization screening to academic, non-profit and government laboratories at a reduced rate. Please remember to cite the appropriate grant funding for your crystallization screening experiments.

• We request that the NIH R24 National Resource grant is acknowledged in any publications. We suggest the following language: Crystallization at the National Crystallization Center at HWI was supported through NIH grant R24GM141256.

Additionally, it would be helpful if the experimental methods reference the Crystallization Center using the most recent updated reference for the soluble and membrane screens.

• Budziszewski, GR, Snell, ME, Wright, TR, Lynch, ML & Bowman, SEJ (2023). High-Throughput Screening to Obtain Crystal Hits for Protein Crystallography. J. Vis. Exp. (193), e65211.

These citations help us to track publications and PDB depositions, an important metric of productivity that will help secure future funding for the Crystallization Center.