An automatic diffraction data collection system with an imaging plate

An automatic diffraction data collection system with an imaging plate has been developed for protein crystallography. The system works in a similar way to the conventional rotation camera method, but in full online mode. After exposure to the X-ray beam, the imaging plate (100 mm radius) rotates whilst a reading head scans across the plate to measure the stimulated luminescence in a record-player-like manner. During the next period of exposure, the image taken immediately before is processed in parallel. The system has been tested using both peptide and protein crystals and has been proven to work successfully.