Many animals use highly reflective organic crystals to manipulate light in coloration and vision. Organisms exert exquisite control over the crystal morphology, arrangement and polymorph. Our lab, which sits at the interface between chemistry, optics and cell biology aims to uncover these ‘bio-crystallization tricks’. We have two main research directions: (i) elucidating the mechanisms of biological crystallization and (ii) the discovery and characterization of new organic bio-crystals. We use a raft of techniques to explore these problems including cryo-EM, optical microscopy and diffraction.