Abstract
The purpose of this review is to describe the benefit of growing crystals in a microgravity environment and the changes we are seeing in this field. The advantages of crystal growing in microgravity has been discussed, investigated and utilized for academic and industrial purposes since the mid 1950’s. The benefits for growing crystals in a microgravity environment have been supported through the individual studies and the meta-analysis that has been executed for the purposes of recent reviews. Recent findings suggest there is a change in the targets and applications of Protein Crystal Growth (PCG) in microgravity. As the space program looks to refocus its resources on exploration and industry experts start to see the benefit of doing work in microgravity, there has been a shift towards a more commercial emphasis on the way PCG programs are run and the goals of those programs. This shift has led to changes in the landscape for this exciting and potentially profitable area of space-based research. In summary, herein we describe the changes we are seeing and share some of our own results and the results from other groups. We believe that these results support the shifts and inform the new directions we believe this field is going to take in the coming years and the impact it will have on the utilization of space grown crystals.