Focused acoustic energy allows accurate and precise liquid transfer on scales from picoliter to microliter volumes. This technology was applied in protein crystallization, successfully transferring a diverse set of proteins as well as hundreds of precipitant solutions from custom and commercial crystallization screens and achieving crystallization in drop volumes as small as 20 nL Only higher concentrations (>50) of 2-methyl-2,4-pentanediol (MPD) appeared to be systematically problematic in delivery. The acoustic technology was implemented in a workflow, successfully reproducing active crystallization systems and leading to the discovery of crystallization conditions for previously uncharacterized proteins. The technology offers compelling advantages in low-nanoliter crystallization trials by providing significant reagent savings and presenting shunless scalability for those crystals that require larger volume optimization experiments using the same vapor-diffusion format.
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