Monash Macromolecular Crystallisation Facility Upgrade on R@CMon

The Monash Macromolecular Crystallisation Facility (MMCF), a Monash Technology Research Platform, was established in 2009 and is operated by the Structural Biology Unit at Monash University. The MMCF provides access to a fully automated platform for the high-throughput crystallisation of biological macromolecules. Macromolecular crystallography provides unparalleled details of 3D structure of biological macromolecules and provides the basis for the rational design of therapeutics. The MMCF is considered to be the largest Macromolecular Crystallisation Facility in the world.

The Monash Macromolecular Crystallisation Facility

The MMCF partnered with Formulatrix, Monash eSolutions and R@CMon to upgrade the facility’s IT infrastructure for the next-generation of crystallisation technology. The R@CMon team provisioned a custom Microsoft Windows-based infrastructure on the Monash node of the NeCTAR Research Cloud for hosting the platform’s new crystallisation and imaging system. An enterprise database has been configured and maintained by Monash eSolutions to support this new system. The facility’s networking infrastructure has been completely revamped by Monash eSolutions too. The R@CMon team worked with the vendor, Formulatrix to deploy the instrument’s software stack. A dedicated research data storage has been provisioned for the facility’s experiments and imaging data.

Protein Crystals Imaging in Action

Protein Crystals Imaging in Action

The R@CMon team and Monash eSolutions are working together to support the facility going forward. The Monash Macromolecular Crystallisation Facility (MMCF) project story first appeared on  Monash University’s The Insider.