The IUCr Newsletter is distributed to 587 libraries and 15,000 crystallographers and other interested individuals in 39 countries. Feature articles, meeting announcements and reports, information on research or other items of potential interest to crystallographers should be submitted to the editor at any time. Submission of text by electronic mail and graphics, slides or photographs by express mail is requested. Items will be selected for publication on the basis of suitability, content, style, timeliness and appeal. The editor reserves the right to edit. Cost of distribution in Australia, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Japan, Poland, South Africa, Switzerland, and The Netherlands is borne by crystallographic associations or institutions or by individual crystallographers in these countries. Address changes or corrections and requests to be added to the mailing list should be addressed to the editorial office.

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IUCr Executive Secretary: Michael Dacombe (execsec.iucr.org)

William L. Duax,
Editor

Patricia Coley
Newsletter Design & Production

Jane Griffin
Assistant Editor

Sally Lunge
Copy Production

 

Send Contributions to: W.L. Duax, Hauptman-Woodward Med. Research Inst., 73 High St., Buffalo, NY 14203, USA, Tel.: 716-856-9600; FAX: 716 852-4846, e-mail: patti@hwi.buffalo.edu

 

Matters pertaining to Advertisements should be addressed to W.L. Duax or P. Coley at the above address. In Japan, contact Prof. Yukio Mitsui, Dept. of BioEngineering, Nagaoka U. of Technology, Nogaoka, Niigata 940-21, Japan, FAX: 81-258-47-9400.On the Cover: The cover illustration combines structures in Scotland, ancient and new: the ancient castle of Eilean Donan and the ultramodern Congress site. Dozens of structures, both ancient and new will be presented for the first time in Glasgow. The ancient structures include bacterial and viral proteins that have existed for billions of years and supramolecular structures that have sprung from the imagination of chemical crystallographers. Whether ancient or new, the details of the three-dimensional structures brought to light by X-ray analysis will make their debut in Glasgow.

Contributors: D. Allan, O. Anderson, H. Berman, A.J. Blake, P. Bourne, A.T. Brunger, A. Clearfield, N. Cowlam, D. Eisenberg, P. Fitzgerald, B. Fox, C. Gilmore, J. Glusker, R.O. Gould, J. Howard, W. Kagunya, B. McMahon, V. Pattabhi, V. Pett, P.K. Predecki, C.H. Schein, R. Sparks, D. Taylor, K. Watenpaugh, J. Westbrook, C. Wilson, J. Woolcock

The IUCr Newsletter (ISSN 1067-0696; coden IUC-NEB) Volume 6, Number 3. Published quarterly (4x) by the International Union of Crystallography. Members receive the IUCr Newsletter by virtue of their membership in the IUCr. Periodical postage rates paid at Buffalo, NY and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Please send changes of address to IUCr Editorial Office, c/o Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, 73 High St., Buffalo, NY 14203 USA.

 

Table of Contents

Letter from the President
Letters to the Editor
Editorial
IUCr Congress
IUCr Activities
Honors
Meeting Reports
Notices, Awards, Elections
Crystallographic Resources
Milestones
Future Meetings
Meetings Calendar
Index to Advertisers

Letter from the President

Our Journals - Present and Future

Recently, my university has made major cuts in its subscriptions to periodicals. This has made me uncomfortably aware of the pressures that scientific journals face. At the same time we have been reminded by Durward Cruickshank, at the American and European crystallographic meetings, of the critical role the establishment of a crystallographic journal played in the formation of the IUCr. Our journals are major assets of the Union. They provide a high quality medium for publishing crystallographic discoveries, results and ideas. Profits from them support many of the activities of the Union. Today, however, many scientific journals face declining subscription levels as a result of restraints in library budgets, currency fluctuations and aggressive competition from new journals. Simultaneously, growth in scientific output, together with the demands of competition for research funds, fuels a demand for more publication space. How should we respond to these pressures? We can be proud of our journals, and it is essential that they continue to succeed scientifically and remain financially viable. In the short term, we need to continually improve, even re-define, them. Each faces challenges of a different nature. Acta D must achieve a higher profile in the biological field and to do this requires substantially shorter publication times. Acta C may need to balance crystallographic quality with chemical interest if it is to make its full impact on chemistry. And JSR will not succeed in its present form without higher subscription levels. These and other issues are being actively debated by John Helliwell, as Editor-in-Chief, Peter Strickland, as Managing Editor, by Section Editors and by the Finance and Executive Committees. Changes are on the way; Acta D will be fully electronic in 1999, and we are aggressively pursuing shorter publication times and better marketing. In the longer term, the whole basis of scientific publishing is in question. What should be in print, and what electronic? Should some of our journals become electronic only? Should some publications which are essentially presentations of data, rather than ideas, be more properly placed in databases? If so, depositions in databases must be accorded higher status by funding agencies and administrations. Most of all, however, we need input from the crystallographic community. They are your journals. We want to publish your best work, we need input on what improvements you want and we need help in ensuring that your libraries subscribe!

Edward N. Baker
Ted.Baker@auckland.ac.nz

 

Letters to the Editor

Dear Bill,

I am writing to bring to the attention of the members of the IUCr the extraordinary generosity shown recently by their society toward Colorado State University. A little over a year ago (July 28, 1997) a classic western flash flood roared onto our campus from the west. The devastating flood waters, which tragically took five lives elsewhere in Fort Collins that terrible night, broke through the west wall of the university's Morgan Library and inundated almost the entire science collection under 10 feet of murky water. In all, the flood damaged more than 437,000 volumes and journals, including more than 18,000 sets of bound journal titles and all recent science books. I am happy to report that our library is on its way back from those depths. An extraordinary outpouring of donated volumes (presently more than 500,000 volumes!) from other universities, individuals, professional societies, and publishers has been the first component of its recovery. Library staff estimates that roughly 90,000 of these donated volumes are exact replacements for volumes damaged in the flood, and these volumes will be back on the shelves for users this fall. Shortly after the flood, I asked Ted Baker whether the IUCr could help restore our collection by donating back issues of Acta Crystallographica that might be in stock with the publisher. Ted, Sine Larsen, and Mike Dacombe offered quick and unswerving support, and their efforts were instrumental in the IUCr's decision to donate all back issues in stock to help with our library's recovery. I wish to thank those three individuals, as well as the entire IUCr, for this incredible act of generosity. As a member, I am proud to know that today the International Union of Crystallography is one of the donors recognized as a key contributor to our library's recovery in a permanent glass sculpture on display in Colorado State's Morgan Library. Thank you Ted, Sine, and Mike - and thank you to all of the IUCr members whose organization made this possible.

Oren Anderson

 

IUCr Statutes

The statutes of the IUCr were written 50 years ago, when the Union was founded, although they have been amended or expanded from time to time since then. All are aware of the huge contributions that women crystallographers have made, and continue to make, to the field, and it seems anachronistic that the language of the statutes is still written in "male-specific" terms. At its recent meeting in Arlington the Executive Committee resolved to change this, and we now seek feedback on this issue. We propose to change all instances of "he" to "he or she", "him" to "him or her", and so on. The word "chairman" we propose to substitute by "chair" (since it is common to chair a committee). We are less certain of this, however, because in its origins the word "chairman" did not have a male connotation. We invite your opinions on these proposals. Please send your views either to me or to Michael Dacombe, Executive Secretary.

Ted Baker , IUCr President

 

Editorial

This issue contains a wealth of information concerning the XVIII Congress of the International Union of Crystallography, which will be held in Glasgow, Scotland Aug. 4-13, 1999. The scientific and social programs and satellite meetings are outlined on pages 6 and 7. The program committee has designed a rich program covering the latest advances in crystal growth, data collection, instrumentation and methods of determination, refinement and computational and graphic analysis. The full range of applications will be covered, from surfaces, textures and organic and inorganic materials to supramolecular structure and macromolecular interactions. An overview of the daily program including keynote lectures and speakers and microsymposia topics appears on pages 8 and 9. The abstract deadline is Feb. 1, 1999. The call for abstracts will be distributed with the next issue of the IUCr Newsletter. Due to the delay in delivery of the newsletter in some countries and the possibility that the next issue may reach some readers very near to or after the abstract deadline I urge you to check the Glasgow website at http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/iucr99 regularly. The full call for papers will appear on that website weeks before a hard copy is available for distribution.

If you appreciate receiving the IUCr Newsletter, please express your appreciation to our advertisers and the Executive Committee of the IUCr whose financial support make it possible. If there are vendors of scientific instruments, supplies and books that you use regularly, who are not among our advertisers, please let us know their names and addresses. If you find your area of crystallographic interest is under-represented in the newsletter please send us a brief article about a meeting or symposium on that topic for inclusion in a future issue. If news of crystallographic activities in your country rarely appear in the newsletter, please prepare a report so that this oversight can be rectified.

The opinions expressed by Alex Wlodawer in his open letter to the commission on biological molecules in the IUCr Newsletter (Vol. 6, #1, p.6) appeared to be widely held. In July 1998 both Science and Nature announced a policy change with respect to publication of X-ray crystal structure determination. "In order to promote the dissemination of information derived from high-resolution structures (determined by x-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance, or other methods) of biological macromolecules, Science will require unrestricted release of the coordinate sets on or before the date of publication for all new manuscripts received on or after Oct. 1, 1998."

If you do not receive a personal copy of the IUCr Newsletter and would like to do so, please contact the Editorial office, FAX: 716 852 4846 or e-mail: patti@hwi.buffalo.edu

 

IUCr Congress

IUCr Congress, Glasgow, August 4-13, 1999

The Scientific Programme

The Scientific Programme for Glasgow in this newsletter was complied by the Programme Committee in Washington, D, taking proposals submitted from individuals, the Commissions and National Committees into account as far as possible. The programme is included here and this will be confirmed in the 2nd Announcement. The chairs and co-chairs have all been invited and only a few still remain to be confirmed. We are pleased to announce the 32 Plenary Speakers and their titles and look forward to a full and exciting scientific congress in Glasgow next year. The registration forms and full details for the Bursary applications, together with the general call for papers will be available in the 2nd Announcement and also given on the web site, where you should watch for any updates. This site will also contain the names of the speakers who have accepted the invitations to speak in the microsymposia, so that you will see the program take its final form over the next few months. There will be additional speakers selected from the submitted abstracts by the session chairs/co-chairs.

The science kicks off with workshops on Aug. 4th. So far we have Powder Diffraction, the Cambridge Crystallographic Database and Electron Diffraction. The main meeting starts with the opening ceremony on the evening of the 4th when the Ewald lecture will be given. This is the IUCr's main award, although the prizewinner has not yet been announced. The remaining days, with the exception of the excursion day, run as follows: there will be two parallel keynote lectures each morning from 8:30 to 9:30 followed by coffee. This is followed by six parallel microsymposia from 10:00 to 12:30. Lunch follows for those not showing posters that day. The poster programme involves a new set of posters each working day. The poster area is part of the commercial exhibition as are the eating areas and an Internet cafe. The poster sessions run from 12:30 to 15:00 with those presenting encouraged to eat sandwiches at their posters. There will be a maximum of 300 posters on show in any one day except for the last three days when the commercial exhibition is closed and there will be more space. The second group of six parallel microsymposia will run from 15:00 to 17:30, and the day finishes with two more parallel keynote lectures from 17:30 to18:30.

Two named lectures are part of all this: there is the Lonsdale lecture on Aug. 7th, and the Bragg lecture the same day. Jack Dunitz, a native of Glasgow, will be giving the latter.

There is one evening session scheduled for Saturday Aug. 7th. This is the J.M.Roberston Symposium, to be organised by Prof. Jim Trotter. We hope to provide a buffet to bridge the small gap of one hour between the last keynote lecture and this session. It is going to be quite a day!

There will be some slots for Open Commission meetings, but these will run in parallel with either the posters or the microsymposia sessions in another smaller room. There will also be areas for non-commercial software demonstrations, a pressroom, and an accompanying members lounge with plenty of space to sit and talk.

Just in case you need more, there are sessions of the General Assembly for the 5th, 6th, 9th and possibly also the 11th. These will run from 19:30-22:00.

The Social Programme

It all begins with an opening ceremony full of music and pictures followed by wine and a buffet on the evening of Aug. 4th. On other evenings we can offer a reception in the Kelvingrove museum on Sunday night, a whisky tasting session, a blend your own whisky competition, a farewell fling courtesy of Strathclyde U. in the Barony Halls on the last night, Friday Aug. 13th. (Don't, whatever you do, go home early!), and an evening shopping at Marks and Spencer (including wine and some nibbles). On Wednesday night you can learn to dance a few easy Scottish ceilidh dances in preparation for the conference ceilidh in the Bute Hall at Glasgow U. The university's Hunterian museum will also be open that evening. A ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) is a uniquely Scottish experience replacing the usual conference dinner, and provides an unforgettable evening of music, dance (who cares if you get it wrong!), food, drink and great company! The closing ceremony is part of the farewell fling on Friday. There will also be two excursions to east end and west end pubs. (I get tired just reading all this!)

There will be a variety of options for the conference excursion. Currently we expect to offer: Inverary and Loch Lomond, Edinburgh, the Isle of Arran, golf, and a scenic geology tour. Accompanying members will be offered daily tours that include sightseeing in Glasgow and that other place (Edinburgh), a whisky distillery, Loch Katrine, Scone Palace, Callander and the Trossachs and shopping. Bring along your partner they will not be bored!

And finally, the eclipse of the sun or at least an 82% version of it. It will stop everything on the 11th at around 11:15. "Will it be sunny?", you ask, "Will I see the sun?". Oh yes (assuming you weren't on the pub visit the night before).

Satellites

This may not be enough crystallography for some of you, so we have four satellite meetings as well:

Synchrotron Radiation: Bob Cernik is organising this at Daresbury.

Structural and Dynamic Aspects of Ionic and Molecular Solids using Neutrons: Colin Carlile at Oxford

Cambridge Structural Database: Frank Allen at Cambridge Computing School: Gérard Bricogne (and others at MRC) at Hinxton Hall near Cambridge.

What Next?

The second announcement goes to print at the beginning of October. It contains registration forms, accommodation information (starting as cheaply as £37 for dinner, bed and breakfast in Strathclyde University complete with en-suite facilities, but you will need to book early for this offer), satellite registration and the full scientific programme. It will be mailed to you in a number of ways:

If you filled in the pre-registration form that accompanied the 1st announcement, you will be mailed this directly.

It will also appear in the IUCr Newsletter as an insert and there may be some mailings via your national crystallography association.

This means that you may get three copies; this is fine distribute the others to colleagues and students, but above all don't miss this event. Watch the web page for frequent updates: http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/iucr99/

If you have questions, e-mail: iucr99@chem.gla.ac.uk

Judith Howard, Programme Chair
Chris Gilmore, Local organiser

Programme Committee

Chair: Judith Howard (UK)

Committee Members:
Y. Amemiya (Japan)
E. Antipov (Russia)
P.E. Bourne (USA)
C.P.Brock (USA)
D.L. Dorset (USA)
R.Feidenhans'l (Denmark)
C.J. Gilmore (UK)
A. Katrusiak (Poland)
C. Kruger (Germany)
K. Lal (India)
L.B. McCusker (Switzerland)
G. Oliva (Brazil)
J.L. Smith (USA)
M.A. Spackman (Australia)
J.W. White (Australia)
A. Yonath (Israel)

Ex. officio:
W.L. Duax (USA)
M. Kaftory (Israel)

Co-Opted:
M. Glazer
P. Fitzgerald

Congress Sponsors

British Crystallographic Assn CCP4 Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre City of Glasgow Clariant GmbH Pigments Technology Research Arnold Clark, Dept of Chemistry at the Univ. of Glasgow; Dept of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Strathclyde Univ. Glasgow Development Agency Greater Glasgow and Clyde Valley Tourist Board; Int'l Union of Crystallography ISIS Facility of the CLRC Marks and Spencer Microsource a Division of Bede Scientific Instruments Ltd. NASA Nature Nature Structural Biology Nonius B.V. Oxford Cryosystems Pfizer Central Research Philips Analytical The International Center for Diffraction Data 3-Dimensional Pharmaceuticals Inc. Unilever Research Univ. of Glasgow Univ of Strathclyde

 

IUCr Activities

Macromolecular CIF

The Crystallographic Information File was created to archive information about crystallographic experiments and results and is now the format in which all structures are submitted to Acta Cryst C. In 1990, the IUCr formed a working group to expand this dictionary to apply to macromolecules. The group was chaired by P. Fitzgerald (Merck) and included E. Abola (Protein Data bank), H. Berman (Rutgers U.), P. Bourne (Columbia U.), E. Dodson (York), A. Olson (Scripps), W. Steigemann (Martinsreid), L. Ten Eyck (UCSD), and K. Watenpaugh (Upjohn). The short term goal of the working group was to define macromolecular CIF (mmCIF) data names that needed to be included in the CIF dictionary in order to adequately describe the macromolecular crystallographic experiment and its results. Long term goals also defined were to provide sufficient data names so that the experimental section of a structure paper could be written automatically and to facilitate the development of tools so that computer programs could easily interface with CIF data files. Three informal and formal meetings were held. The dictionary was presented at the ACA meeting in Montreal in July 1995 and was placed on a WWW site. Community comments were solicited via a list server. Lively discussions via this mmCIF list server ensued, resulting in the continuous correction and updating of the dictionary. Software was developed and placed on the WWW site. In Jan. 1997, the mmCIF dictionary was completed and submitted to COMCIFS for review. In June 1997, Version 1.0 was released. A workshop was held at Rutgers U. in Oct. 1997, hosted by H. Berman. Procedures for maintenance and evolution of the dictionary were established. The proposed extensions are sent to the Editors of the mmCIF Dictionary (P. Fitzgerald, Editor, H. Berman, Assoc. Editor) who send the new definitions to a member of the board of editors (P. Bourne, A. Howard, J. Sussman, F. Allen, D. Tronrud) for scientific review. More than 100 new definitions have been proposed and reviewed since the fall of 1997. Version 2 of the mmCIF dictionary will contain many of these new definitions and is expected to be released in the fall of 1998.

P. Fitzgerald, H. Berman, J. Westbrook, P. Bourne, K. Watenpaugh and B. McMahon

 

Meeting Reports

British Crystallographic Association
1998 Spring Meeting St. Andrews, UK

Plenary Sessions

Each of the four subject groups of the British Crystallographic Assn invited a speaker for a "Plenary Session" with the theme of "Disorder" at the Spring meeting. K. Prout (Oxford, "Slow motion and disorder in molecular crystals") discussed the use of nuclear magnetic resonance and X-ray crystallographic data to study molecular disorder in crystals. The different timescales probed by the two techniques offer insight into dynamic processes. Examples included phase transition in penicillin derivatives, clarification of disorder as "static" or "dynamic" in ferrocene, camphor and deoxycholic acid derivatives, and analysis of a complex series of phase changes undergone by crystals of pyridinium nitrate thiourea clathrates. In his presentation, "Computer simulations as a tool for the interpretation of diffuse scattering", R. Welberry (Australian Nat'l U.) used optical transforms to illustrate the effect on the diffraction pattern of various simple types of disorder. Knowing the basic pattern shapes can assist in the interpretation of diffuse scattering patterns. Both measurement and pattern interpretation were illustrated with examples including KLiSO4, urea inclusion compounds and stabilized zirconias. P. Fairclough (Sheffield, "Scattering studies of polymer crystallization") discussed larger scale structures and small angle scattering and how the formation of crystallinity in different types of polymers affects their properties. Experimental approaches to the study of crystallization in situ were described and the use of both the Bragg and diffuse scattering in small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and wide angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) patterns was shown to be important in understanding how a polymer crystallizes and organizes itself. K. Wilson (York, "Proteins: selected disorder") spoke about the disorder in protein structures and how it is to be treated depending on the type of information one is attempting to extract from the structural analysis. He discussed disorder of parts of the protein molecule itself, solvent disorder near the protein and the presence of alternate solvent networks (illustrated for example in work on vitamin B12).C-hick Wilson

Question and Answer Session

A question and answer session at the meeting produced the following interesting exchanges.

Q: What is the smallest size of a single crystal from which diffraction data can be collected nowadays?

A: M. Harding suggested that for simple inorganic material, such as CaF2, the answer might be around 0.5 microns. With increasing complexity larger crystals would be needed since the mean reflection intensity decreases as the number of atoms increases.

Q: Acta C makes its acceptance criteria more and more stringent. Is this because they only want boring and routine structures to be published there? Does the journal discriminate against chemically interesting results which have been extracted with skill and patience from poor quality crystals?

A: (from three Acta C Co-Editors in the audience) While high standards have been used to establish the criteria for publication of the average structure in Acta C, extenuating circumstances are taken into account. For example, where a crystal diffracted weakly the resolution limit might be relaxed. The editorial in the January 1998 issue of I contains examples of "valid extenuating circumstances" and "unacceptable excuses".

Other questions concerned achiral molecules in enantiomorphous space groups; the importance of polarity in space groups like Pnc21; the interpretation of Flack parameter values; the importance or correct weighting of reflections whether you are refining on F or F2; when a structure can be considered as refined to convergence; and the reasons for the prevalence of the space group P21/c-is this entirely due to its inherently efficient translational symmetry, or because many of us like it so much. - A.J. Blake, U. of Nottingham

Chemical Crystallography

The Chemical Crystallography group (CCG) organized a session and a workshop. The session included presentations entitled: "Adventures in Molecular Recognition" (J. Sanders), "Synthesis of Inorganic Supramolecules Networks" (N. Champness), "Intermolecular Interactions Involving Metal Complexes" (G. Orpen), "Designing Non-linear Optical Materials: Supramolecular Requirements" (J. Cole), and "Charge-Transfer Complexes: Molecular Flexibility and Packing" (A. Batsanov).

The CCG workshop was on twinning. R. Herbst-Irmer (U. of Gottingen) began by defining twins and giving simple examples of twinning, twin laws and fractional contribution, before detailing the four different types of twinning: merohedral, pseudo-merohedral, reticular merohedral and non-merohedral. She presented detailed examples of the different types, their diagnosis and their treatment in refinement. She compared the use of twin laws to disorder modeling in twinned crystals and showed the former not only gave superior results but did so at the expense of only one additional refinement variable. E. Hovestreydt of Bruker AXS contributed a short presentation on software being developed by B. Sparks for automatic treatment of non-merohedral twins on both area detector and four-circle diffractometers. The warning signs for twinning include metric symmetry higher than Laue symmetry, similar Rint values for higher and lower Laue groups, values of |E2-1|<<0.736 and unusually long cell axes. - A.J. Blake, U. of Nottingham

BCA Industrial Group

The topics of the Industrial Group (IG) sessions were "Data Quality - Fit for Purpose" and "Hardware and Software Developments". The highlight of the IG program was the presentation of the Alun Bowen Industrial Lecture "The Development of X-Ray Analysis" by awardee B. Snyder of Ohio St. U. Snyder painted a broad tapestry of X-ray utilization, starting with Roentgen in 1895 and finishing with the latest methods such as grazing incidence and EXAFS. Pointing out that, within 15 years of Roentgen's discovery most of the tools available today had been defined, each specific discovery was exemplified with slides of the original work followed by its development and the latest implementation of that idea. As examples of the modern scene, the arrival of synchrotron radiation with its wavelength tunability has led to EXAFS and XANES analysis of poorly crystalline materials. The precision of high resolution instruments has revealed fundamentals of superconductivity, and grazing incidence has opened the door to thin film analysis. Time dependent studies are now readily achievable, allowing reactions to be followed together with, for example, phase transitions, kinetics, etc. A thoroughly fascinating review of our field, and a superb re-statement of the utility of X-rays was presented.

The Data Quality session included presentations on production and identification of samples and the developement of the Powder Diffraction File (R. Jenkins, ICDD), techniques for line broadening analysis of new materials (R. Todd, U. Manchester), cation site orderng in Olivine and the structure of fast ion conductors in fuel cells (R. Knight, RAL), and the challenges of analyzing pharmacutical materials (J. Anwar, Kings College, London). Anwar noted that the existence of polymorphs, hydrates, phase instability, low symmetry, weak scattering, grinding and texture variations make pharmacuticals expecially challenging samples.

Representatives of Bruker AXS, Nonius BV, Philips, Bede Scientific, Stoe and Eie and Oxford Cryosystems all contributed to the session on Hardware and Software Developments. - Bruce Fox

 

American Chemical Society Symposium

A symposium entitled "Advances in Structure Determination by X-ray Diffraction and Related Methods" was organized by A. Clearfield at the Spring American Chemical Soc. meeting. P. Coppens described the use of the extremely high brilliance beam at Advanced Photon Source at Argonne Nat'l Lab. to study photoinduced excited states and transient species. These results contribute to a better understanding of photochemical processes. D. Poojary described the solution of unknown structures with up to 50 non-hydrogen atoms by application of "direct" and/or Patterson methods to powder data. Excellent software now exists for deconvolution of the powder pattern and refinement of the structure by Rietveld techniques. B. Toby (NIST) describing the use of simulated annealing techniques for structure solution. B. Blessing (Hauptman-Woodward Inst) presented a succinct summary of the phase problem and its solution. He traced the history of the Harker-Kasper inequalities, the Sayre equation, Hauptman-Karle direct methods and the Shake-and-Bake Method of macromolecular structure solution. C. Campana described the advantages of using a CCD detector on small or poorly diffracting crystals (twinned, split, multiple and those with a large mosaic spread). T. Koetzle (Brookhaven) and A. Albinati discussed neutron diffraction and incoherent inelastic neutron scattering (IINS) as complementary techniques for studies of order-disorder reactions, ion exchange processes in zeolites, and dehydration reactions. Synchrotron radiation coupled with area detectors on a 1.5 sec time scale and specially designed high temperature cells are used to obtain resolved powder data. A. Schultz (Argonne) discussed neutron diffraction sources, applications to transition metal cluster hydride complexes, studies of Jahn-Teller distortion switching under applied pressure and the location of interlayer cations and water in layered oxide materials. D. Dorset achieved direct determination from electron diffraction intensities of structures of an aluminum-iron alloy, metal layers on silicon and the hydrogen position in brucite. K. Hodgson (Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lab) used EXAFS and XAS to determine the coordination about metal centers and the oxidation state of the metal distinguishing between Cu(I), Cu(II) and Cu(III) in bridged dicopper oxo or hydroxo complexes. A. Wilkinson described the use of EXAFS and powder diffraction to match phase evolution and site specific inhomogeneities in mixed potassium tantalum niobates. D. Jones and J. Roziere (CNRS, U. Montpellier) described the use of X-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy (XANES) and EXAFS as probes for the local structural and electronic changes which occur for lithium extraction from lithium manganese spinels. B. Bujoli (U. of Nantes) utilized a combination of NMR, EXAFS and IR spectroscopies to study amine intercalates of zinc phenylphosphonate where zinc changes from six coordinate to four coordinate. This finding was corroborated by an independent powder X-ray study (Clearfield, Texas A&M). J. Jorgensen (Argonne) presented a very elegant summary of the oxygen defect chemistry of high-temperature copper-oxide superconductors. B. Von Dreele (Los Alamos) is exploring the limits of powder techniques gathering data on porcine insulin, and myoglobin. T. Egami (U. of Pennsylvania) dealt with atomic pair-density functional analysis of crystalline materials (PDF). The method of PDF analysis has been widely used in the study of liquids and glasses, but it is equally applicable to the study of crystalline materials, for materials with internal disorder this technique has particular advantages.

A. Clearfield

 

Structural Biology Symposium

At the Sealy Center in Galveston, Texas, Interactions of viral proteins and nucleic acids related to infectivity, the dynamics of enzyme regulation and folding, and differing approaches to protein design were the main topics at a Structural Biology Symposium that attracted 240 researchers. W.A. Hendrickson (Columbia U., NY) described a complex of the HIV envelope glycoprotein gpl20 with a neutralizing antibody fragment and the D1/D2 domains of CD4, and revealed variable regions of the protein and the added glycosylation that mask many potential antigenic sites, thus serving to hide the functional parts of HIV from the immune system. M. Rossmann showed how the antiviral compound WIN 54954 displaces the mysterious "pocket factor" of the common cold causing human rhinoviruses, thus altering the structure enough to interfere with virus binding or capsid disruption. M. Summers (U. of Maryland) used NMR studies to correlate the crystal structure of the HIV-1 nucleocapsid protein with its structure when bound to HIV-1 RNA. Films of the structure of virus capsids deduced solely from electron microscopy data by E. Chiu included a 9 Å resolution 3D-images of unstained Herpes simplex B capsids at -170°C. M. Hecht (Princeton, NJ) has designed combinatorial libraries based on the periodicity patterns of amino acids in stable protein structure elements. By inserting these elements into appropriate loop structures, one can design a protein having the desired secondary and tertiary elements. H.W. Hellinga (Duke U. Med. Ctr, Durham NC) uses a rational approach to design proteins containing active metal ion centers, metal enzymes. Homme's work illustrated the fact that many effects of point mutations cannot be rationally predicted a priori. M. Schiffer (Argonne Nat'l Lab, Illinois) showed that change of a single amino acid in an immunoglobulin light chain resulted in a "flipped" dimeric structure with more buried surface area and hydrogen bonds than the parent molecule but none of the interactions that stabilized the initial dimer. Working with cytochrome c, M.M. Pierce and B. Hall (UTHSC, San Antonio) suggests that some mutations affect the compactness of the denatured state and that amino acids other than histidine can coordinate the heme prosthetic group. S.S. Taylor (U. of California) presented the structure of c-AMP-Dependent Protein Kinase (APK) and its affectors. The kinase kinetics are directly influenced by the viscosity of the solvent, effects which are at least partly attributable to the need for dynamic motion of the C-helix during catalysis. J. Kuriyan (The Rockefeller U., NY) suggested that movement is particularly important for catalysis in APK as the nucleotide binding site is relatively inaccessible. Such movement may be less necessary within the Src-family tyrosine kinases, which according to his structures have a relatively exposed site for binding GDP.

C.H. Schein
From the ACA Newsletter, Summer 1998

 

Intercalation Compounds. Structure and Dynamics

This one day workshop on the varied applications of neutron diffraction was opened with a talk by A. Taylor (ISIS Facility) . Topics and techniques discussed include: graphite silicates and molecular sieves (J. White, Australian Nat'l U.); generating 2-D organic-inorganic hybrids with electrochemical and dye properties (D. Jones, U. of Montpellier); the structure and swelling of clay layers in an aqueous media (N. Skipper, U. College London); the application of X-ray and neutron diffraction to the determination of temperature dependence of the atomic and magnetic structure of magnetic intercalates (J. Evans, U. of Oxford); dynamics of water in charged hosts using quasielastic neutron scattering (J. Dianoux, ILL); dynamics in zeolites (K. Ross, U. of Salford); in situ synchrotron studies of hydrated calcium silicates revelant to cement-rock reactions occurring in concrete-encapsulated toxic and nuclear waste sites (M. Henderson, U. of Manchester); complex molecules encapsulated in zeolite Y and their significance as catalyst centres and enzyme mimics (P. Mitchell, Reading U.); intercalation science on the Osiris spectrometer (C. Carlile, ISIS Fac.); and phase behavior of water in MCM-mesoscopic materials (J. Dore, U. of Kent at Canterbury).

The meeting was organized by W. Kagunya and C. Wilson and supported by the Neutron Scattering Group of the Inst. of Physics and the Faraday Div. of the Royal Soc. of Chemistry.

Winnie Kagunya, ISIS Facility
from the BCA Newsletter

 

Denver X-Ray Conference 1997

The first two days of the 46th Annual Denver X-Ray Conf. were devoted to tutorial workshops: Microfluorescence & Microdiffraction, Amorphous Scattering, Specimen Preparation, Composition Depth-Profiling Grazing-Incidence XRF and Reflectometry, Neutron Diffraction, Heteroepitaxial Layers & Semiconductor Substrates, and Crystal Chemistry applied to XRD Phase Identification I & II. The plenary session on X-Ray analysis and Characterization of Thin Films, organized by I Noyan, was a highlight of the conference.

The 1997 Barrett award for X-Ray Diffraction was presented to J.D. Jorgensen (ANL, Argonne, IL) and ICDD special awards were presented go G.J. McCarthy (North Dakota State U., Fargo ND) and P.K. Predecki (U. Denver, Denver, CO). The conference proceedings will be published on CD-ROM from the ICDD. Exhibits of X-Ray and related equipment by 32 companies were available for perusal during the week.

1997 marks the last year the conference was organized and sponsored by the U. of Denver, Dept. of Engineering, with P.K. Predecki as chairman. These tasks will henceforth be assumed by the ICDD with R. Jenkins as conference chairman.

Paul K. Predecki
CPD Newsletter No. 19, 1997

 

Notices, Awards, Elections

Awards

The Haworth Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK was presented to G. Jeffrey for contributions to carbohydrate chemistry.

J. Lawrence Katz, Prof. of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve U. received the Career Achievement Award from the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, the society's highest honor.

 

1998 Elizabeth Wood Science Writing Award

The winner of the 1998 Elizabeth Wood Science Writing Award is R.M. Hazen, research scientist at the Carnegie Inst. of Washington's Geophysical Lab and Prof. of Earth Science at George Mason U. "The Breakthrough: The Race for the Superconductor" is his fascinating account of the importance of crystallography in characterizing high temperature superconductors, and "The New Alchemists: Breaking Through the Barriers of High Pressure" describes work on the forefront of research in a style which is accessible to the nonspecialist. The ACA award was presented at the 1998 ACA meeting in Arlington, Virginia

V. Pett

 

Eleanor Dodson wins 1998 Fankuchen Prize

The Fankuchen Memorial Award recognizes crystallographers for both research and effective teaching of crystallography. E.J. Dodson of the U. of York, England, was cited for developing and implementing major computational techniques for macromolecular crystallography and for teaching countless students how to use the resultant programs. Her name is closely linked with the Collaborative Computing Project 4 (CCP4) suite of programs for macromolecular crystallography, which has been used in labs around the world for two decades. She lectures at countless schools and workshops, and has assisted untold numbers of protein crystallographers with remarkable diligence, patience, and humanitarian concern.

V. Pett

 

J.D. Hanawalt Award

The Int'l Centre for Diffraction Data takes pleasure in announcing that Herbert Göbel, Siemens AG, München, Germany, has been selected to receive the J.D. Hanawalt Award for excellence in the field of X-ray Powder Diffraction. The J.D. Hanawalt Award is presented every three years for important, contribution to the field of X-ray powder diffraction. The award consists of a citation and a cash gift of $1,000. Dr. Göbel presented a paper on his work at the 47th Annual Denver X-ray Conference in Colorado Springs, CO, USA.

 

Mineral Structures, Phases and Earthquakes

The winner of the Philips Award for 1998 was A. Pawley from the Dept. of Earth Sciences at the Univ. of Manchester. Her research has probed phase relations and mineral stability, in particular, the stability of hydrous minerals. She placed constraints on the conditions of dehydration of minerals in hydrated basalt and peridotite in subducting slabs which, when incorporated into thermal models of subduction zones, are crucial for understanding processes such as melting and the triggering of deep earthquakes. She outlined the importance of water in the Earth's mantle and how break-down reactions of hydrated minerals in subduction zones play a pivotal role in the volcanism and seismology of regions where tectonic plates collide. Her X-ray diffraction studies of lawsonite and talc (held simultaneously at high-pressure and high-temperature) brought insight into one of the most exciting and important fields of modern Earth Science.

D. Allan, U. of Edinburgh, in the BCA News

 

Honors

50 years of Neutron Scattering

A symposium honoring George Bacon on his 80th birthday was organized at the U. of Sheffield where George was Professor of Physics for 18 years and Dean of the Fac. of Pure Science. George built the first neutron diffractometer in the UK at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (Harwell) and used it in the first neutron diffraction experiments to be performed outside the US. He publicized the use of neutron scattering through his papers, review articles, and his classic textbooks. M. Johnson's symposium presentation "Neutron and numerical methods" showed how a combination of neutron diffraction, neutron spectroscopy and numerical modeling leads to deeper insight into the structures and dynamics of materials. Johnson illustrated this with fascinating film sequences of moving and vibrating atoms. Describing "Liquid semiconductors, then and now", J. Enderby (Bristol) reminded the audience that the most fruitful progress is often made when neutron data are combined with the results from bulk (in this case electrical) measurements. The meeting was sponsored by the British Crystallographic Assn, the Neutron Scattering Group of the Inst. of Physics and of the Royal Soc. of Chemistry.

Neil Cowlam, BCA Newsletter

Bonnie Buoyant Beevers at Ninety

On May 27th, 1998 the youthful Arnold Beevers celebrated his 90th birthday. Over the years, his contributions to science, to the communication of science, and simply to the good humor of scientist and non-scientist alike have been enormous. His name has left its mark in three places: Beevers-Lipson strips, Beevers-Ross sites and Beevers Miniature Models. Arnold and H. Lipson devised a simple box of paper strips that could be organized for lining up and summing the necessary values in a Fourier syntheses. Arnold was involved in the solution and interpretation of many key early structures, including the alums, copper sulphate and glucose. Arnold decided to make models of stainless steel rods and perspex balls that have invaded most of the known world. An excited poultry researcher once gave Arnold a sample of eggshells that he claimed consisted of aragonite rather than calcite. X-ray powder diffraction soon showed that they were pure calcite, like all eggs. Arnold pointed out that hens usually understand these matters better than scientists do! On a famous occasion one Christmas, he asked to see the manager of a Princess Street shop in Edinburgh to point out that decorating the windows with four and eight-pointed snowflakes was a disservice to the truth! The manager was not impressed, but there may be some meaning in the fact that while the shop has long disappeared, Arnold flourisheth yet- Happy Birthday Arnold, and many more!

R.O. Gould, BCA Newsletter

 

Elections

ICDD Officers and Directors for 1998

Chairman: R. Snyder
Vice-Chairman : R.A. Young
Treasurer: J. Messick
General Manager: R. Jenkins
Chairman Tech Committee: C.R. Hubbard
Members-at-Large: J. Kaduk, B. O'Connor, J. Post, C. Prewitt, D. Rendle

 

Pittsburgh Diffraction Society Results

President: S. Geib
President-Elect : J. Woolcock
Past-President: S. Swaminathan
Treasurer: J. Abola
Secretary: R. Shiono
Member-at-Large: R. Stewart

 

In The News

Rajagopalm Chidambaram, Secretary of the Dept of Atomic Energy of India, was a member of the team that announced the underground tests of nuclear weapons in India in May. Dr. Chidambaram is an authority in the field of high pressure neutron diffraction and is a member of the Executive Committee of the IUCr.

 

Crystallographic Resources

Layered Release is Coming

The PDB will shortly begin to use the Layered Release protocol as part of PDB's deposition procedure. This will allow for virtually immediate release of entries onto the PDB servers without PDB staff intervention. A PDB ID code will be issued immediately, but the depositor can indicate if the data are to be released right away (which the PDB will encourage), upon publication of the accompanying article, or after an on-hold period. Depositors will get immediate feedback at deposition time from the same validation programs being used by the PDB, to help them decide whether their data are actually suitable for deposition, or publication, or still require further work. Unless a depositor requests an explicit hold, or to release on publication, each new entry will automatically become available as a Layer-1 release in the next update of the archive. A file containing all output diagnostics from the checking programs will be associated with every entry. Updates are loaded onto the PDB server and mirror sites weekly. Following release of Layer 1, the PDB staff will process the entry. Processing will include standardization of nomenclature, and data representation. The resulting entry, after author approval, will be loaded on the PDB server as Layer 2. Documentation may be found at the Website as the documents "Validation for Layered Release" (www.pdb.bnl.gov/pdb-docs/validation.html) and "List of Items Mandatory for a Complete PDB Submission" (www.pdb.bnl.gov/pdb-docs/mandatory_items.html). Enquires may be addressed to the PDB Help Desk at pdbhelp@bnl.gov.

 

New Program For Structure Determination

Two years ago, development was started on a new program for structure determination called Crystallography & NMR System. This program is the result of an international collaborative effort among several research groups. The program has been designed to provide a flexible multi-level hierachical approach for the most commonly used algorithms in macromolecular structure determination. Highlights include heavy atom searching, experimental phasing (including MAD and MIR), density modification, crystallographic refinement with maximum likelihood targets, and NMR structure calculation using NOEs, J-coupling, chemical shift, and dipolar coupling data. The program is currently undergoing extensive beta-testing in a number of laboratories worldwide. General release is planned for the Fall of 1998. A paper describing the philosophy of the program will be published in Acta Cryst. D. The Crystallography & NMR System program will be provided to academic users for a small adminstrative fee and to commercial users through a yearly licensing scheme which will support a non-profit support and development group, headed by P. Adams at Yale U. Dr. Brunger's group has terminated all development and support of the program X-PLOR. There is no active relationship between Dr. Brunger's group and Molecular Simulations Incorporated and no future relationship is planned. Announcement of the official release of Crystallography & NMR System will be made on the Internet as soon as it is available.

Principal Members of the Collaborative CNS effort are M. Clore (Nat'l Inst. of Health), P. Gros (Utrecht U.), M. Nilges(EMBL Heidelberg), R. Read (Cambridge U.).

Axel T. Brunger, Mol Biophysics and Biochem Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Inst

 

Industrial Group Newsletter

Two editions of the BCA Industrial Group Newsletter have been produced thanks to the efforts of editor Bruce Fox. The current curculation of 450 includes 185 members of the BCA. An instrument Sensitivity Round Robin exercise in conjunction with ICDD has been completed with over 30 UK participants. A report has been issued and a valuable resource on instrument sensitivity has been generated. It is now available on the BCA website (http://gordon.cryst.bbk.uk/BCA/index.html) as a set of self-test files. The results were presented at the Denver Diffraction Conference.

D. Taylor, BCA News, April 1998

 

Milestones

Kenneth N. Trueblood (1920-1998)

Kenneth N. Trueblood, a leading scientist and teacher at UCLA for 49 years, died at home in Los Angeles on May 7, 1998. He was 78. The cause was cancer. Ken was unusual in excelling in all three areas of academic life: teaching, research, and administration. After joining the UCLA faculty in 1949 as a temporary instructor, he rose through the ranks, serving as Chair of Chemistry (1965-1970, 1990-1991), Dean of the College of Letters and Science (1971-1974), and Chair of the Academic Senate (1983-1984). Throughout this entire period, Ken continued the classroom teaching that he loved, and pursued his research on the three-dimensional structures of molecules, using x-ray diffraction. He was a pioneer in the use of computers to determine structures, and his work contributed to the Nobel prize discoveries of others, including his long-term collaborators Dorothy Hodgkin of Oxford and Donald Cram of UCLA. Ken remained active in research after retirement from the teaching faculty, completing the last of his 140 research papers just days before his death. In the early 1970's he organized a departmental X-ray crystallography lab used by organic and inorganic chemists, not crystallographers only, to so1ve chemical structural problems. This "departmental crystallographic lab" was a model copied by many chemistry departments throughout the world. Ken possessed a phenomenal memory for both chemicals and people. Upon running into former students who had been in one of his large classes years before, he would astound them by greeting them by name. His success in teaching and administration was rooted in his combination of modesty and interest in the well being of others that conveyed a feeling of integrity to all those who met him. He seemed always to see the best in others, and they responded to his expectations. Often he worked alongside his research students all night on the early computers to help solve crystal structure problems. Ken was a native of Dobbs Ferry, NY who studied chemistry at Harvard (A.B. 1941) and Caltech (Ph.D. 1947). Influenced by Linus Pauling, Ken became a crystallographer and set out on his life's work of determining the structures of molecules. For this he was honored with a Fulbright award for study at Oxford (1956-1957), a Guggenheim fellowship for research at the Swiss Federal Inst. of Technology (1976-1977), and the Fankuchen Memorial award of the American Crystallographic Assn (1995). He was elected President of the American Crystallographic Assn in 1961. He was visiting Professor at Ibadan, Nigeria (1964-1965) and visiting scientist at The Inst. of Elemento-Organic Compounds in Moscow, Russia (1965-1966). For his profound influence on beginning chemistry students, he received the first UCLA Distinguished Teaching award (1961) and the national award for excellence in teaching given by the Manufacturing Chemists Assn in 1978. Ken was coauthor of "Crystal Structure Analysis: Primer" (1972) and editor of "Dorothy Hodgkin and Linus Pauling - A Tribute" (1995). He was an avid fan of the New York Yankees and of all UCLA sports.

David Eisenberg, Jenny Glusker and Robert Sparks

 

Future Meetings

56th Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference

The 1998 Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference will be held at Mellon Inst Auditorium, CMU, Pittsburgh, PA, Nov. 5-7. The conference chair is J. Woolcock, Indiana U. of Pennsylvania. NOTE: A lifetime membership in the PDS is available for a $100 tax-deductible donation. Symposia will include "Smart Materials" chaired by B. Newnham and "In Situ Characterization of Materials Processing by Diffraction Data" chaired by B. Snyder. A $200 prize in memory of C.S. Yoo will be awarded to the best poster presentation by a student. Nominations are requested for the Sidhu Award to be presented during the conference. Nominees should have received their Ph.D after April 1, 1993.

For more information, contact: J. Woolcock. Tel: 724 357 4828; email: woolcock@grove.iup.edu; http://www.pitt.edu/~geib/pds.html.

J. Woolcock

 

Electron Crystallography

The Electron Crystallography of Biological Macromolecules Symposium will take place Dec. 9-12, 1998 in Lake Tahoe, CA, USA. It will cover recent advances in electron crystallography, hybrid crystallography (X-ray and electrons) and high-resolution electron cryomicroscopy and their implications for studies of membrane proteins, cytoskeletal proteins, and large functional complexes.

Invited Speakers: U. Aebi, W. Baumeister, W. Chiu, J.F. Conway, D. DeRosier, K. H. Downing, A. Engel, J. Flanagan, J. Frank, R.M. Glaeser, N. Grigorieff, B. Jap, W. Kühlbrandt, K. Mitsuoka, A. Miyazawa, K. Namba, E. Nogales, J.P. Rosenbusch, M.G. Rossmann, M.B. Sherman, G.F.X. Schertler, M.F. Schmid, T.A. Steitz, A Steven, M.H.B. Stowell, S. Subramaniam, K. Taylor, J.E. Walker, J. Walz, E.M. Wilson-Kubalek, M.J. Yeager.

For further information and on-line Registration: http://ncmi.bioch.bcm.tmc.edu/ECBM98/ECBM98.html; or contact M. Perez (mperez@bcm.tmc.edu; FAX: 713-796-9438).

Indian Seminar on Crystallography

The XXIX National Seminar on Crystallography is being organized by the Dept of Crystallography and Biophysics, U. of Madras, Dec. 21-23, 1998 for Nat'l Committee for Crystallography of the Indian Na'l Science Academy, which is affiliated with the IUCr. The scientific program will consist of invited lectures, oral presentations and posters.

Topics will include: Crystal growth and characterization, methods in crystal structure analysis including computational methods; Organic and organo metallic structures; Coordination compounds and polymers; Inorganic and mineralogical crystallography; Biocrystallography, real and ideal crystals; Atomic scale mechanisms; Physical properties and structures; Material science, ;Apparatus and techniques; Structure methods other than diffraction; Education, data retrieval and other topics in crystallography.

The deadline for abstract submission is Oct. 31, 1998.

For further information, contact V. Pattabhi, Convener, XXIX Nat'l Sem. On Crystallography, Dept of Crystallography & Biophysics, U. Of Madras, Guindy Campus, Chennai - 600 025, India; FAX: 044 235 2494; e-mail: crystal@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in

Vasantha Pattabhi

 

ICCOSS XIV

The 14th Int'l Conf. on the Chemistry of the Organic Solid State (ICCOSS XIV) will be held in Cambridge, England, July 25-30, 1999. Conference topics will include studies of physical processes, molecular recognition and chemical reactions in organic crystals, inclusion complexes, monolayers, micelles, vesicles, polymer matrices, zeolites, surfaces; nonlinear optical effects; organic metals, and conducting polymers and fullerenes; magnetic properties of organic solids; X-ray crystallography; crystal engineering, hydrogen bonding motief in organic crystals; photoresistance technology and microlithography; Langmuir-Blodgett films; solid state NMR, AFM and STM spectroscopy; solid pharmaceuticals; inclusion and intercalation phenomena; crystal nucleation, crystal growth and control of crystal morphology; and biomineralization.

For information, contact: ICCOSS XIV, W. Jones, U. of Cambridge, Dept. of Chemistry, Lensfield Rd, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK, E-mail: ICCOSSXIV@ch.cam.ac.uk.

 

Meeting Calendar

A selection of future meetings. Extensive lists appear regularly in J. Applied Crystallography, the BCA Newsletter and the ACA Newsletter. Corrections and new listings are invited by the Editor.

NOVEMBER 1998

2-6 - II Workshop on Optoelectronic Materials and Their Applications. Havana, Cuba. Contact: I. Milan Licea (Gen. Man. MERCADU-UH) or M. Sanchez (Chair, U. of Havana); FAX: 537 33-5842; evento@comuh.uh.cu.

5-7 - 56th Pittsburgh Diffraction Conf. Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Contact: www.pitt.edu/~geib/pds.html. See page 22.

9-13 - First Iberoamerian Congress on Sensors and Biosensors. Havana, Cuba. Contact: J. A. Rodriguez. jar@cnm.es.

12-13 - Small Angle Neutron Scattering Workshop. Abingdon, UK. Contact: R. Heenan, RAL. rkh@isise.rl.ac.uk

18 - Neutrons for Structure Chemistry. Oxfordshire, UK. BCA Chemical Cryst. Group Autumn Meeting 1998, Contact: C Wilson, ISIS Fac., CLRC Rutherford Appleton Lab., Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK. FAX: 44 1234 445720; cwilson@rl.ac.uk; www.isis.rl.ac.uk/Crystallography/CCG98.htm.

25 - Structural Physics of Functional Materials. Coventry, England. BCA Physical Cryst. Group Autumn Meeting. P. Thomas, U., of Warwick, Conventry CV4 7AL, UK. FAX: 44 1203 692 016; phrve@csv.warwick.ac.uk.

30-6 - Advanced School of Macromolecular Crystallography. Sao Carlos, Brazil. Contact: R. Schoen; rschoen@nas.edu or G. Oliva; oliva@ifqsc.sc.usp.br, FAX: 55 16 273 9881.

 

DECEMBER 1998

6-10 - Molecular Graphics and Modelling Soc. 1998 Int'l Meeting. San Diego, CA, USA. Contact: P. Graber, The Scripps Res. Inst. MB-5, 10550 N. Torrey Pines Rd, LaJolla, CA 92037 USA; mgms98@scripps.edu; www.mgmsoa.org.

9-12 - Electron Crystallography of Biological Macromolecules. Lake Tahoe, CA USA. Contact: M.J. Perez; Tel: 713 798 6625, mperez@bmc.tmc.edu; ncmi.bcm.tmc.edu/symposium. See Page 22.

21-23 - XXIX Nat'l Seminar on Crystallography. Chennai (Madras), Tamilnadu, India. Contact: crystal@giasmd01.vsnl.net.in. See Page 22.

 

APRIL 1999

6-9 - 17th Advanced Beam Dynamics Workshop on Future Light Source. Argonne, IL, USA. Contact: FLS Workshop, Argonne Nat'l Lab, Argonne, IL, USA; flsworkshop@aps.anl.gov; www.aps.anl.gov/conferences/FLSworkshop.

7-15 BCA/CCG Seventh Intensive Course in X-Ray Structural Analysis. Durham, UK. Contact: J.A.K. Howard, BCA/CCG Intensive Course, Dept. of Chem, U. of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE, UK; FAX 44 0 191 374 3745, j.a.k.howard@durham.ac.uk.

 

MAY 1999

17-20 SAS99: XIth Int'l Conf. on Small-Angle Scattering. Brookhaven Nat'l Lab, Upton, NY, USA. Contact: A. Emrick; emrick@bnl.gov; sas99.bnl.gov/sas99.

12-23 Crystal Engineering : from Molecules and Crystals to Materials. Erice, Italy. Contact: P. Spadon, paola@pdchor.unipd.it; www.geomin.unibo.it/orgv/erice/crysteng.htm.

12-23 Data Mining in Crystallography. Erice, Italy. Contact: P. Spadon, paola@pdchor. unipd.it; www.geomin.unibo.it/orgv/erice/datamini.htm.

22-27 ACA '99. Buffalo, NY, USA. Contact: G.D. Smith, Mol. Biophys. Dept., Hauptman-Woodward MRI, 73 High St., Buffalo, NY 14203-1196, USA; smith@hwi.buffalo.edu; www.hwi.buffalo.edu/ACA/ACA-Annual/Buffalo/Buffalo.htm.

23-27 18th Int'l Conf. on X-ray and Inner-Shell Processes. Chicago, IL, USA. Contact: X-99 Conf. Office, Phys. Div./203-G122, Argonne Nat'l Lab, Argonne, IL, 60439-4843, USA;FAX: 630 252 2864; x99@anl.gov; www.phy.anl.gov/x99.

 

JULY 1999

25-30 14th Int'l Conf. on the Chemistry of the Organic Solid State (ICCOSS XIV). Cambridge, UK; Contact: ICCOSSXIV@ ch.cam.ac.uk. See Page 22.

26-30 6th Int'l Conf. on the Structure of Surfaces (ICSOS-6). Vancouver, Canada. Contact: K.A.R. Mitchell, Dept. of Chem., U. of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada; karm@chem.ubc.ca: www.conferences.ubc.ca/icsos.htm.

 

AUGUST 1999

1-6 Eleventh American Conf. on Crystal Growth & Epitaxy (ACCGE-11). Tucson, AZ, USA. Contact: T. Gentile, ACCGE-11 Sec., PO Box 3233, Thousand Oaks, CA 91359-0233 USA; FAX: 805 492 4062; aacg@lafn.org; www.aml.arizona.edu/aacg.

4-13 18th IUCr General Assembly and Int'l Congress of Crystallography. Glasgow, Scotland. Contact: www.chem.gla.ac.uk/iucr99/.

23-26 Alfred Benzon Sym. No. 46, Molecular Mechanisms of Innate Immunity. Copenhagen, Denmark. Contact: B. Dalgaard; FAX: 45 3962 0933; benzon@post1.tele.dk; www.benzon-symposia.dk.

 

SEPTEMBER 1999

19-24 - XIII Int'l Biophysics Congress. New Delhi, India. Contact: anil@tifrvax.tifr.res.in.

30-2 - 2nd European Charge Density Meeting (ECDM-II). Sitges (Barcelona) Spain. Contact: E. Espinosa, ECDM-II/ Secretariat Inst. de Ciencia de Materiales de Barcelona (CSIC) Campus de la UAB 08193, Cerdanyola, Spain; Fax: 34-93-5805729; enrique@icmab.es; http://www.icmab.es/ECDMII (under construction).

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