Organizing a crystallization laboratory

Managing chemical stocks and samples in any laboratory is an arduous task; in a crystallization laboratory this is particularly burdensome, given the need for many stocks to facilitate optimization of crystal hits obtained from screening experiments. Although inventory management is widespread in retail and other arenas, most small academic laboratories do not adopt formal stock management systems. Without an overarching system for handling stocks and samples, problems such as stock duplication, inappropriate stock storage and insufficient labelling are rife. Two applications have been developed in the Collaborative Crystallization Centre, the first of which manages the hundreds of stocks used for crystallization, and a second which manages protein (and other) samples stored in the 193 K freezer. Both applications are built around a simple database, with a Python front end that allows samples or stocks to be scanned in or out. Information from a decade of crystallization stock usage allows a good estimation of what chemicals are used (and in what quantities) in a crystallization laboratory.