A team of researchers led by Dr. Mike Sleutel from the VIB-VUB Center for Structural Biology in collaboration with scientists from the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems of the Eindhoven University of Technology, and the CNRS in Grenoble, have for the first time uncovered the molecular details of protein crystal nucleation, a process with great medical and scientific relevance. The team also developed a new methodology to study a broad class of systems that have remained elusive to date. Their results are published in Nature.