フェムト秒レーザーが拓く有機分子の成長モード制御および多形制御

抄録

  High quality protein crystals are necessary to realize three-dimensional structure analysis of proteins. However, protein crystallization, which involves nucleation and crystal growth, remains a major bottleneck in the structural determination process. In this decade, the authors have been developing innovative crystallization techniques to solve the problem. In this review, we first introduce our recent development of spatio-temporal control of protein crystal growth by femtosecond laser ablation, which enables us to promote protein crystal growth. We also explain the molecular mechanism from the viewpoint of crystal growth mode and its relevance to our past studies of protein crystal growth under flow. In addition, we also describe new methods for selective crystallization of the metastable phase of pharmaceutical compounds with cavitation bubbles induced by femtosecond laser irradiation or ultrasonic irradiation. Surprisingly, the metastable phase obtained by the methods was extremely stable and thus can potentially be applied to producing new medicines. These polymorphic control technologies are applicable to other materials, thus they have possibility to be practical applications in the future.