Ithaca, NY, – April 11th, 2017 (on PR.com) MiTeGen LLC, a provider of innovative consumables and equipment for protein crystallization and single crystal X-ray, announced the opening of the NANUQ™ Access Facility (NAF) which provides scientists with day-use access to MiTeGen’s revolutionary automated high-speed cryocooling device (NANUQ™).

“This technology provides a fundamental change in how crystals can be prepared for data collection.” says Ben Apker, Director of Business Development at MiTeGen. “Providing a facility where researchers are able to make use of this advancement, means that any lab can now cryocool their samples without the unwanted variability and negative side-effects that routinely impact delicate crystals that are hand-plunged into liquid nitrogen.”

Crystallography plays a key role in the development of new drugs for diseases like cancer, diabetes, Ebola, and AIDS. To obtain the data necessary for these medical breakthroughs, researchers routinely need to grow and cryogenically cool small sub-millimeter sized crystals. During the cryocooling of the crystals, the formation and growth of crystalline ice from the solvent found on and within the delicate samples, easily damages the crystal structure. This frequently causes samples to diffract poorly, providing low-quality data that is unusable. By maximizing the cooling rate of plunge-cooled crystals, the solvent can be quickly trapped as amorphous ice, and prevent the formation of damaging ice crystals.

NANUQ™ is a fully automated, high-speed, cryocooling device for improved cryocooling and cryopreservation of small samples. The laboratory instrument provides up to a ten-fold increase in cooling rates compared to the current methods. This increase in cooling rate reduces the crystalline ice formation within and around small samples, such as those found in X-ray crystallography and in oocyte and embryo vitrification. The initial product release has been customized to the needs of protein crystallographers, automatically loading samples in the Universal V-1 Pucks, routinely used in automated data collection. Learn more at https://www.mitegen.com/nanuq/

“For crystallographers whose crystals tend to form ice that degrades the diffraction pattern, this revolutionary new technology is extremely promising. We were very pleased with the results experienced by our first users.” says Rob Newman, CEO of MiTeGen. “Since the funding cycles for scientists to acquire expensive, cutting-edge, equipment can be lengthy, often delaying scientific progress. By establishing the access facility, we are enabling scientists that cannot yet afford a device in their own lab, a means to benefit from the technology today.”

NANUQ™ Access Facility (NAF) is located at MiTeGen’s headquarters in Ithaca NY, just a few miles from the CHESS synchrotron beamlines. The facility and support services enable crystallographers to access state-of-the-art equipment that will optimize the cryocooling of their crystals, while reducing or eliminating the need for cryoprotectants. The laboratory facility includes a NANUQ™ cryocooling device, liquid nitrogen supplies and accessories, a Carl Zeiss Discovery V8 stereo microscope outfitted for crystallography, and all the required tools and accessories for controlled, reproducible cryocooling into the Universal V1 Pucks (Uni-pucks). MiTeGen personnel are on site to directly assist in ensuring the success of NAF users. Learn more at https://www.mitegen.com/NAF/

About MiTeGen Crystallographer’s research plays a key role in the advancement of medicine and technology. We provide innovative tools, equipment and solutions that measurably improve the ease, reproducibility, and quality of their experiments. MiTeGen designs, manufactures and distributes a full range of the leading products for the crystallization, crystal harvesting, cryocooling and X-ray diffraction data collection of proteins, viruses and small molecule/inorganic compounds. Our customers include academic, medical, pharmaceutical, government and industrial laboratories in more than 45 countries. Founded in 2004, MiTeGen is based in Ithaca, NY.

More information can be found at www.mitegen.com