11^th Heart of Europe bio-Crystallography Meeting

Greifswald, Germany, Setember 2008
www.chemie.uni-greifswald.de/~biochem/hec-index.html

The Heart of Europe bio-Crystallography Meeting entered its second decade on September 25, 2008. The meeting was organized by the Molecular Structural Biology Group of Ernst-Moritz-Arndt U. of Greifswald.

The meeting attracted 113 participants from bio-crystallography groups in Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. During the three days of the meeting, 35 lectures were presented mostly by students and young scientists. The keynote HEC Lecture was given by Poul Nissen (University of Aarhus) on the crystal structure of the sodium-potassium pump. The HEC Prize for the best lecture was awarded to Linda Schuldt (EMBL Hamburg Outstation) for her talk entitled: Three-dimensional crystal structure of DapD from M. tuberculosis. The prize was a copy of the International Tables for Crystallography, Vol. A, which was generously sponsored by the IUCr.

Social activities included two informal evening get-togethers and a boat ride on the Baltic Sea.

A publication entitled 10 Years of Heart of Europe bio-Crystallography Meetings, edited by Mariusz Jaskolski and Michal M. Sikorski (Inst. of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, Poland), was unveiled. This book summarizes information about all previous meetings including posters, programs, reminiscences of organizers and numerous photographs and documents how well the HEC community has flourished over the last decade.

The next HEC meeting, scheduled for September 24-26, 2009 will be organized by Pavlina Rezacova and her group in Trest, Czech Republic (www.img.cas.cz/hec).

Pavlina Rezacova