LIMS for experiment management

CrystalTrak™ crystallisation database

The Bio21 C3 sets up and images a lot of crystallisation plates – somewhere on the order of 2000 per year.  In order to keep track of the plates, we use a crystallisation database product from Rigaku, called CrystalTrak.  This program manages the information about users, institutes, crystallisation plates, deepwell blocks, chemicals, stocks and the myriad of other details that you would need to reproduce an experiment.

The software also provides a user-friendly interface so that scientists can see the results of their crystallisation experiments.  CrystalTrak is a thick client application that runs on a Windows XP operating system.  Users are welcome to come up to the CSIRO node of the Bio21 C3 in Parkville and use CrystalTrak on the hot-desk computer that we have here.

For external users, there is a web-based version of CrystalTrak called CTweb which offers users the opportunity to look at their experiments over the internet.  This software also provides users with the ability to create custom designs for optimisation experiments.