• Question: What Is The Most Dangrous Cyristal ?

    Asked by gonegaming to Ben, Dave, Ed, Sam, Susana on 19 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: David Briggs

      David Briggs answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      During my PhD my group worked on a protein called “Botulinum Neurotoxin” – even though the crystals were tiny (0.1 mm across) they still contained enough toxin to kill a full grown man – so we had to be extra careful with those…

    • Photo: Sam Horrell

      Sam Horrell answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      Most crystal we work with a pretty hamless as they are but it is possible to crystallise whole viruses which you need to be a bit more careful with. There are only a few places around the world where you can do crystallography on dangerous viruses and one of them is at the Diamond Light source where I work in Oxford.

    • Photo: Ed Lowe

      Ed Lowe answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      You’ve had two really good answers already, but from a slightly less direct approach I thought I’d mention gout – a very painful condition caused by crystals of uric acid forming in your joints. Crystals get everywhere!

    • Photo: Susana Teixeira

      Susana Teixeira answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      You can make crystals of many things, so crystals that contain viruses, toxins, explosive or radioactive materials are all dangerous.

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