"... room that was lined with insulated steel walls and that could be
flushed with liquid nitrogen."
I'm trying to picture this ... did you guys have some kind of LN2-
proof SCUBA diving equipment to work in there?
Klaus
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Klaus Fütterer, Ph.D.
School of Biosciences P: +44-(0)-121-414 5895
University of Birmingham F: +44-(0)-121-414 5925
Edgbaston E: [log in to unmask]
Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK W: www.biochemistry.bham.ac.uk/klaus/
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On 19 Jun 2008, at 18:04, Mischa Machius wrote:
> Ha, everyone seems to be bragging about how far back cryo-
> crystallography really goes. In that vain, I'd like to mention
> that, in Martinsried, we had a room that was lined with insulated
> steel walls and that could be flushed with liquid nitrogen. It was
> requested (demanded, really...) by Robert Huber when the Max-Planck
> Institute was finalized in 1972 (I hope I got my history right).
> That room contained an entire diffraction system. Talk about
> crystal cooling... bah, way too dinky. Cool the entire room! Of
> course, it was a hazard to work in that room, and so - as far as I
> know - there was only one post-doc from India how ever used it.
> That room had an ante-room with two more generators plus detectors
> that could be cooled down to -20°C! Ah, the good old Wild West
> times of macromolecular crystallography...
>
> Cheers - MM
>
>
>
> On Jun 19, 2008, at 11:48 AM, Pietro Roversi wrote:
>
>> Well everyone, talking of early applications of cryocooling to X-ray
>> crystallography, what about Sten Samson's marvellous helium cryostat
>> which was operational at Caltech since the end of the 1970s and
>> used to
>> reach temperatures around 20 K routinely ...., see for example:
>>
>> Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1982 Jul;79(13):4040-4.
>> Structure of a B-DNA dodecamer at 16 K.
>> Drew HR, Samson S, Dickerson RE.
>>
>> That instrument (and its twin) are now both with Riccardo Destro in
>> Milano.
>>
>> Ciao!
>>
>> Pietro
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Pietro Roversi
>> Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, Oxford University
>> South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3RE, England UK
>> Tel. 0044-1865-275385
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------
> Mischa Machius, PhD
> Associate Professor
> Department of Biochemistry
> UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
> 5323 Harry Hines Blvd.; ND10.214A
> Dallas, TX 75390-8816; U.S.A.
> Tel: +1 214 645 6381
> Fax: +1 214 645 6353
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