Awards

The Dorothy Hodgkin Prize winner for 1997, M. M. Woolfson of York began his awards lecture "From Rock Salt to Viruses" with a discussion of his early work in derivation of an equation which later led to the Karle and Hauptman relationship and concluded by examining the question of whether it is worthwhile to develop direct methods to give ab initio solutions of protein structures - "after all, the community is doing pretty well with the tools they have". He continued with typical enthusiasm "worthwhile or not, it is an interesting challenge". Woolfson's conclusion was that high resolution data would be necessary in macromolecular phasing and that some help could be found by further developing his and Laila Rafat's TRITAN method.

1997 UK Medals and Awards included: The Hughes Medal to A. R. Lang for fundamental work in X-ray diffraction physics and X-ray topology, and the study of defects in crystal structures; the Sylvester Medal to H. S. MacDonald Coxeter for achievements in geometry and the analysis of spatial shapes and patterns; the Gabor Medal to K. C. Holmes for his pioneering analysis of biological structures and use of synchrotron radiation for X-ray diffraction experiments; and Armourers and Brasiers Company Award for excellence in materials science and technology to H. K. D. H. Bhadeshia for his work on solid state transformation in steels.

L. D. Glasser, one of the Founder Members of the BCA was awarded an M.B.E. for 'Services to Science and Engineering', June 14, 1997. Glasser is the Director of the Science and Technology Regional Org. for North Scotland in Aberdeen.

The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre has recently established an endowment of £1 700 000 to fund an Olga Kennard Fellowship in recognition of her contributions to science. The terms of The Fellowship in Structural Molecular Biology or Crystallography designed to be specially attractive to women will be listed in a future session of the BCA Crystallography News.

The Ralph F. Hirschmann Award in Peptide Chemistry, sponsored by Merck Res. Labs, was awarded to Isabella L. Karle, US Naval Res. Lab and the Ipatieff Prize to Andrew J. Gellmann, Carnegie Mellon U.