(I noticed these words of wisdom did not make it to the thread.  Hereby 
belatedly corrected.)

The relevant TLI here is ROI:  for the money to put one crystallization
plate in space, you can employ enough postdocs probably to solve all
membrane proteins in the human genome terrestrially 3 times over.  (Of
course, biologists would also need to get savvy enough to sucker
governments into thinking it's a good idea for national defence.)

Quite apart from the fact that crystallization and data collection are
only two of many steps in a totally non-linear process, and that the
cheapest (...?) way to get good data from sub-optimal crystals that
actually matter is (a) to go to a state-of-the-art synchrotron and (b)
go back to the lab for a few weeks.

But maybe the quickest way to find your answer is to locate your local
crystallographer (preferably with pharma experience and/or with a few
recent grant rejections) and invite him out for a beer.  The question is
big and the real answer is "check out a text book" (cue Bernard...),
certainly too big for a bulletin board reply read by people few of whom
I believe take the reported improvements of space crystals seriously --
by seriously I mean sure-I'll-swipe-my-own-credit-card-if-NASA-won't
seriously.

(Ah, that was fun...! :-)
phx.

>>
>>
>>
>> On 10/05/2010 04:49, Jack Reynolds wrote:
>>      
>>> TITLE: "Extracting trends from two decades of
>>>        
>> microgravity macromolecular crystallization history" (2005)
>> (Judge, Snell and van der Woerd).
>>      
>>> "Significant enhancements in structural knowledge have
>>>        
>> resulted from X-ray diffraction of the crystals grown . . .
>> in the reduced acceleration environnments of an orbiting
>> spacecraft."
>>      
>>>
>>> TITLE: "Macromolecular Crystallization in Microgravity
>>>        
>> Generated by a Superconducting Magnet" (2006) (Wakayama,
>> Yin, Harata, Kiyoshi, Fujiwara and Tanimoto).
>>      
>>> "About 30% of the protein crystals grown in space
>>>        
>> yield better X-ray diffraction data than the best crystals
>> grown on the earth."
>>      
>>>
>>> TITLE: "The crystallization of biological
>>>        
>> macromolecules under microgravity: a way to more accurate
>> three-dimensional structures?" (2002) (Lorber).
>>      
>>> "The crystallization of proteins . . . in a
>>>        
>> microgravity environment can produce crystals having lesser
>> defects than crystals prepared under normal gravity on
>> earth. Such microgravity-grown crystals can diffract X-rays
>> to a higher resolution and have a lower mosaic spread."
>>      
>>>
>>> TITLE: "Protein crystal growth on board Shenzhou 3: a
>>>        
>> concerted effort improves crystal diffraction quality and
>> facilitates structure determination." (2004) (Han, Cang,
>> Zhou, Wang, Bi, Colelesage, Delbaere, Nahoum, Shi, Zhou,
>> Zhue and Lin)
>>      
>>> ". . . careful and concerted planning at all stages
>>>        
>> made it possible to obtain crystals of improved quality
>> compared to their ground controls for some of the proteins.
>> Significantly improved resolutions were obtained from
>> diffracted crystals of 4 proteins. A complete data set from
>> a space crystal of the PEP carboxykinase yielded
>> significantly higher resolution, and a lower average
>> temperature factor than the best ground-based control
>> crystal."
>>      
>>>
>>> TITLE: "JAXA-GCF project - High-quality protein
>>>        
>> crystals grown under microgravity environment for better
>> understand of protein structure." (2006). (Sato, Tanaka,
>> Inaka, Shinozaki, Yamanaka, Takahashi, Yamanaka, Hirota,
>> Sugiyama, Kato, Saito, Sano, Motohara, Nakamura, Kobayashi,
>> and Yoshitomi.)
>>      
>>> "JAXA has developed technologies for growing, in
>>>        
>> microgravity, high-quality protein crystals, which may
>> diffract up to atomic resolution, for a better understanding
>> of 3-dimensional rpotein structures through X-ray
>> diffraction experiments."
>>      
>>>
>>> TITLE: "A Comparison between Simulations and
>>>        
>> Experiments for Microgravity Crystal Growth in Gradient
>> Magnetic Fields." (2008). (Poodt, et al.).
>>      
>>> "Microgravity protein crystal growth is expected to
>>>        
>> lead to an improvement of protein crystal quality, compared
>> to crystals grown under normal gravity, due to the
>> suppression of buoyancy driven convection. This is highly
>> relevant, because for protein structure determination by
>> X-ray diffraction, protein crystallization is often the
>> quality limiting step."
>>      
>>>
>>> TITLE: "Macromolecular crystallization in
>>>        
>> microgravity." (2005) (Snell and Helliwell).
>>      
>>> "Density difference fluid flows and sedimentation of
>>>        
>> growing crystals are greatly reduced when crystallization
>> takes place in a reduced gravity environment."
>>      
>>>
>>> TITLE: "Comparison of space- and ground-grown
>>>        
>> Bi2Se.21Te2.79 thermoelectric crystals." (2010). (Zhou, et
>> al.)
>>      
>>> "The compositions of the space crystal grown along
>>>        
>> growth direction were more homogeneous than that of the
>> ground crystal grown. The crystallization of space crystal
>> grown was obviously improved."
>>      
>>>
>>> That's just a handful of quotes from a few of the
>>>        
>> sources I have accumulated over the last few months. I guess
>> this all boils down to your definition of "significantly
>> improved crystals."
>>      
>>> Is there something wrong with these sources? Am I
>>>        
>> misunderstanding their findings?
>>      
>>> Jack
>>>
>>>
>>> --- On Sun, 5/9/10, Dunten, Pete W.<[log in to unmask]>
>>>        
>> wrote:
>>      
>>>
>>>
>>>        
>>>> "significantly improved crystals " I
>>>> wasn't aware that was an accepted generalization,
>>>>          
>> born out
>>      
>>>> by the experiments already conducted.
>>>> Can you cite a number of cases?
>>>>
>>>> Another issue for pharma would be the timeline.
>>>> Chemistry programs move pretty fast, and if the
>>>>          
>> xray
>>      
>>>> crystallographers don't keep up,
>>>> they aren't very useful.
>>>>
>>>> Pete
>>>> ________________________________________
>>>> From: CCP4 bulletin board [[log in to unmask]]
>>>> On Behalf Of Jack Reynolds [[log in to unmask]]
>>>> Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2010 11:26 AM
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>> Subject: [ccp4bb] Clarification and another
>>>>          
>> question . . .
>>      
>>>> --- On Sun, 5/9/10, Klaus Fütterer<[log in to unmask]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>          
>>>>> Dear Jack,
>>>>>
>>>>> I believe your venture would enter a mature
>>>>>            
>> market,
>>      
>>>>>
>>>>>            
>>>> and, if
>>>>
>>>>          
>>>>> you were to offer growing growing crystals in
>>>>>
>>>>>            
>>>> microgravity,
>>>>
>>>>          
>>>>> a market characterised by very high costs and
>>>>>
>>>>>            
>>>> (presumably)
>>>>
>>>>          
>>>>> very low margins.
>>>>>
>>>>>            
>>>> I wouldn't offer crystal growth, I would offer
>>>>          
>> access to
>>      
>>>> the data from x-ray diffraction of space-grown
>>>>          
>> crystals. Is
>>      
>>>> the data from significantly improved crystals not
>>>>          
>> a valuable
>>      
>>>> commodity?
>>>>
>>>> If the pharmaceutical industry (and other
>>>>          
>> researchers, for
>>      
>>>> that matter) could grow crystals in space, and
>>>>          
>> extract
>>      
>>>> critical data from the x-ray diffraction of these
>>>> space-grown crystals (in space); AND
>>>>
>>>> if costs could be reduced by 30-50%; AND
>>>>
>>>> if the end-product is the data, not the crystals .
>>>>          
>> . .
>>      
>>>> do you still think (profit) margins would be
>>>>          
>> nominal?
>>      
>>>> Is your assessment of "very low margins" based on
>>>>          
>> assumed
>>      
>>>> "very high costs?"
>>>>
>>>> Jack
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>          
>>
>>      
>
>
>