Its not always the case that the project has been abandoned or died, some labs will push crystallisation notes to give a student paper-writing experience, and could have invested a significant effort since in the project. They could be waiting for e.g. the complex that makes it interesting. Or the PI could be slow and inefficient (like me)!
If its a simple MR task, and the other groups crystals are the same as yours, then its perhaps unlikely they would not have solved it. In the old days the thing to do would be to contact the other group and see what their plans are. But this requires people to be nice to each other, and I'm not sure that works anymore, even in crystallography. Peter On 25 September 2012 15:03, Nat Echols <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 6:51 AM, Tim Gruene <[email protected]> > wrote: > > I would assume that someone who publishes crystallisation conditions has > > given up solving the structure or some other reason to encourage others > > to pick up the project, i.e., no, I don't see much point NOT > > publishing your data. > > I always assumed that the point of publishing crystallization > conditions was to establish priority, and apparently there was once > such an unspoken rule about publishing the structure. Or so I'm told; > from what I've seen it's long abandoned. > > A bit of historical perspective (about a very high-profile project): > > http://www.sciencemag.org/content/285/5436/2048.full > > -Nat >
