MEETINGS
Guidlines for organisation of an ECM
Guidelines for financial support
Highlights from National Meetings
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MEETINGS
Guidlines for organisation of an ECM
Guidelines for financial support
Highlights from National Meetings
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The Anniversary 10th Heart of Europe bio-Crystallography (HEC-X) Meeting, held in Bedlewo, Poland, September 27-29, 2007, was organized by the Center for Biocrystallographic Research, Polish Academy of Sciences (Poznan). It brought together 118 participants, mostly students, from the three Heart-of-Europe countries (Germany, Poland, Czech Rep.). In keeping with the HEC tradition, the 31 scientific presentations (20-min. lectures) were given exclusively by young scientists. A special HEC Lecture on "Crystallography, chemistry and insulin's biological processes" was delivered by Prof. Guy Dodson (Univ. of York, UK). An IUCr-sponsored HEC Prize for the best presentation went to Robert Kolodziejczyk (A. Mickiewicz Univ.) for his talk entitled "Insect Juvenile Hormone Binding Protein exhibits ancestral fold present in human lipid binding proteins". The ECA generously sponsored 9 registration fee waivers. (http://hec-x.ibch.poznan.pl/)
Mariusz Jaskolski, HEC-X Chairman
The first ever Zürich Crystallography School was intended for masters and Ph.D. students in chemistry and crystallography from all over Europe, particularly those who do not have ready access to crystallography courses at their own institution. The impressions given below by one of the students says it all...
Tony Linden, Hans-Beat Bürgi, School Directors
A Student's Perspective
The Zürich Crystallography School 2007
Hosted by the University of Zürich and organized by PD Dr. Anthony Linden and Prof. Hans-Beat Bürgi, The Zürich Crystallography School took place for the first time in August, 2007. Interested in crystallography, twenty participants, mainly PhD students from all over Europe, came together to attend this two-week class.
The course started Sunday evening with a nice get-together, so people got a chance to get to know each other and every student received a folder with all the documents and teaching material for the next two weeks. As you could download the course material beforehand, you were able to prepare yourself and get a rough idea of what's to come.
Starting with the main principles of diffraction, growing crystals and how to mount them, to discussing difficulties and problems and finally solving and refining your own crystal structures during the practical work, the course covered all topics. So no matter whether you were already experienced or not, the course covered both basic and advanced skills and provided new and more in-depth insights into the subject. Therefore, everyone was able to profit and gain plenty of new knowledge about crystallography. Determining your crystal structures, you learned both gwhich button to pushh but more importantly gwhyh.
The first week was dominated by theory whereas during the second week the morning and afternoon sessions were split into a theoretical and a practical part. For the practical work, the twenty participants were divided into ten groups of two people each, depending on their previous knowledge, so every group consisted of one more and one less experienced student.
The lectures were hosted in a modern classroom and the practical exercises took place in a fully equipped computer-room. One computer was provided to each group, but you were welcome to bring your own laptop. During the time of the course, internet access to the University WLAN was provided and could also be used over the weekend. The nine tutors, who have been working in this field for years, supervised the ten groups during all the tutorials and exercises, so the students profited from intense supervision and support while trying to solve their structures.
With access to four different types of diffractometers on offer, every student got the chance to set up a crystal measurement on a machine similar to the one their own group is using. Each evening, the class ended with a short summary of the day where students got the chance to comment on the day's lectures or to mention things they noticed.
I would like to emphasize the extraordinary commitment of all of the tutors. Even though many of them lived close enough to go home in the evening, they all joined the evening dinner to have discussions or simply pleasant conversations. They worked unsocial hours no matter whether it was to prepare the lectures, to help us deal with difficult crystal structures or give us an extra maths-refresher in a nice evening get-together. Not just the organization of the course was absolutely flawless, but also the social gatherings like the excursion to the PSI with the synchrotron and SINQ or the two barbecues we had. With a big dinner on the last evening, the course concluded with a little surprise for the students: they received a certificate for their attendance and a great book about crystal structure refinement (Müller et al. Crystal Structure Refinement, a Crystallographer's Guide to SHELXL – donated by the IUCr and OUP).
It was a total of 90 hours of crystallography, two weeks of really hard work for both the students and the tutors, but believe me it was absolutely worth it! I think all of them did a great job and I honestly hope some more courses like this one will follow so other people interested in crystallography will get the chance to attend this really great course, too, and to go home and not just be satisfied with the massive amount of knowledge they gained during these two weeks, but with the inspiration to improve themselves in this art.
Last but not least, I'd like to use this opportunity to thank all the sponsors of this course who made this great experience possible and affordable. Thank you.
Julia Rinck, Karlsruhe
The third French Crystallographic School on Structural Analysis by X-ray Diffraction was held in Pont à Mousson (Nancy, France) in September 2006. The school was attended by 57 participants coming from 5 countries (France, Spain, Belgium, Marocco, Algeria) and 15 international speakers.
The program covered basis of structural analysis, extended to crystallography under perturbation (pressure and optical excitation). The organization was based on the close relationship between plenary lectures, held each morning, and tutorials on computers during the afternoons and evenings.
A round table was organized with discussions on various subjects including ghow to run a service crystallographyh. Participants had the occasion to exchange their experience and opinion between each other and with sponsors.
Dr Sébastien Pillet, Chairman
The regional Heart of Europe bio-Crystallography Meeting (HEC-8), the eighth in a popular annual series, took place in Karlovy Vary from September 29 to October 1, 2005. The Meeting was funded in part by the European Crystallographic Association, and also supported by the Czech and Slovak Crystallographic Association. The organizer was the Institute of Molecular Genetics, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. The Meeting was attended by about 100 participants and provided a forum for 32 presentations by young bio-crystallographers from Germany, Poland, Austria and the hosting Czech Republic. A memorable HEC-8 Lecture on "Phasing on anomalous scattering: Multi- vs Single-wavelength" was given by Zbyszek Dauter from the Argonne National Laboratory, USA.
(prof. Juraj Sedlacek, chairman)
The 9th edition of the International Conference on Crystal Chemistry of Intermetallic Compounds was held in Lviv, Ukraine, on September 20-24, 2005. This series of All-Union conferences was initiated in 1971 in context with the creation of the School on Crystal Chemistry at Lviv University, and since then, a meeting takes place approximately every third year. The 2005 edition was organized under the auspices of Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, the Ministry of Ukraine for Education and Science, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Crystallographic Committee (UCC), and was further sponsored by the International Center for Diffraction Data (ICDD) and the European Crystallographic Association (ECA).
145 scientists from eleven different countries attended the conference to present recent results in the fields of phase diagrams, crystal structures and physical properties of intermetallic compounds. The program included eleven plenary lectures presented by leading scientists:
17 shorter oral presentations and 95 poster presentations covered further aspects of intermetallic and related compounds and gave the opportunity to numerous interesting discussions.
An open meeting of the UCC was organized within the frame of the conference. It was opened by the President of ECA, H. Fuess, who exposed the activities of the parent association ECA. The conference was followed-up by an ICDD workshop, where different products and grant-in-aid programs of ICDD were presented.
The conference abstracts are available in electronic form at the web-site www.franko.lviv.ua/conference/imc. Proceedings will be published in a special issue of the Journal of Alloys and Compounds in 2006.
Thanks to financial support granted by ECA, 33 young scientists could attend the conference free-of-charge.
Vice chairperson of the IX-IMC Organizing Committee: R. Gladyshevskii
Secretary of the IX-IMC Organizing Committee: B. Belan
21-29 June, Białowieża,Poland.
Organizer: Institute of Experimental Physics, University of Bialystok, Poland
The School and Symposium gathered 65 participants from 10
countries. Its programme constituted natural continuation of the
previous School (2004) on the “Structural Aspects of
Matter”. The main emphasis was put on the transient effects
and time-resolved characteristics of structural phase
transitions, especially the ones induced by light. Attention was
also put to the catalytic phenomena and less-known halogen
bonding. The School program covered also the basics and
up-to-date application of neutron scattering, muon spin rotation
and various visualization techniques – all of them
essential in the studies of phase transitions.
About 30 PhD and undergraduated students participated in the
School. Most of them were supported through the funds of IUCr and
ECA, whose sponsorship was acknowledged in all official
documents, in the internet announcements, and at the opening and
closing of the School. All students who received the grants were
obliged to present a poster. Five of them were next selected for
a short oral presentation. In addition to regular courses and
talks, training in using crystallographic software was organized
for the students.
In the opinion of lecturers and other participants the School
and Symposium was very successful and the organizers got strong
support for continuation of such events.
(prof. Ludwik Dobrzynski, chairman)
Nancy, France, 20-24 June 2005.
The School was attended by 61 registered participants from 20 countries with different backgrounds (chemistry, physics, mineralogy, mathematics, biology...).
This heterogeneous public was introduced to several aspects of modern theoretical crystallography by nine invited lecturers:
Theo Hahn, Hans Wondratschek, Ulrich Muller (Germany), Mois I. Aroyo (Spain), Vojtech Kopský (Czech Republic),
Michele Catti (Italy), Artem Oganov, Howard Flack (Switzerland) and Takamitsu Yamanaka (Japan).
The School included also a poster session, with 23 posters presented: the electronic version of the abstracts, as well as didactic
material related to the lectures, is available for download from the school website.
A special issue of Acta Crystallographica Section A will be published with articles from the lecturers and manuscripts submitted by the participants.
(prof. Massimo Nespolo, chairman)
