The present invention provides a method for the acoustic ejection of fluid
droplets from fluid-containing reservoirs to form arrays suitable for
high-throughput combinatorial crystallization experiments. Such arrays may
utilize very small fluid volumes, in the order of picoliters. The method
is especially suited to preparing combinatorial libraries useful in
developing techniques for crystallizing biomacromolecules, such as
proteins. The small volumes conserve macromolecules that may be costly and
rare, and permit the testing of a large number of experimental
crystallization conditions for a given amount of a macromolecule. The time
required for the experiments may be very short due to the small volumes.
The invention is conducive to forming high-density microarrays of small
volume crystallization experiments. Acoustic detection of crystals in
situ, and distinction between biomacromolecular and non-biomacromolecular
crystals, are also taught.
