Meeting report
Crystallographic Summer School
The fifth Summer Course in X-ray Crystallography was held at the U. of Pittsburgh Jul. 28-Aug. 7, 1996. The course was a Satellite meeting of the IUCr meeting in Seattle. The IUCr provided travel expenses for young scientists to attend. Additional funding was received from the diffractometer vendors.
Lecturers included D. Marsh, B. Craven, W. Robinson, R. Sparks and B. C. Wang. Lab tutors were B. Skelton, K. van Beek, S. Geib, J. Rose, C. Campana, K. Robinson, G. Williams and T. Hendrixson. B. Craven handled the entire administrative burden. The participants learned a great deal from their interactions with the tutors, lectures, representatives of the diffractometer vendors and from each other. The students worked successfully in teams of two or three.
The lecture notes were distributed to the students before they arrived (copies are available ftom Polycrystal Book Service). Students were encouraged to bring their own crystals. A total of 23 X-ray intensity data sets were collected on three diffractometers. From these data sets 18 structures were solved. Two data sets were collected at the end of the course and there was no time to solve these structures (one was subsequently solved). Unit cell parameters from 4 of the data sets matched those from previously reported structures listed in the NIST Crystal Data File. In addition, structures were solved from 3 data sets that were collected before the school started. As in past years, on the final day the students presented short reports.
The course will be given again in 1997 at the U. of Georgia where, for the first time, five diffractometers will be available, including three with modern area detectors. Three additional lecturers - W. Cordes, J. Rose and G. Newton - will participate. An additional lecture on Molecular Modeling and how it relates to X-ray Crystallography will be given by L. Allinger. The course will run Aug. 4-Aug. 14. For information and registration forms contact J. Rose, Dept of Biochemistry, U. of Georgia, Athens, Ga 30602; Tel: 706 542-1750; e-mail: rose@BCL4.biochem.uga.edu.
Robert Sparks and Bryan Craven