80th Annual Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference

The 80th Annual Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference took place from 15 to 17 October 2023 at the Wyndham Hotel situated on Pittsburgh's Oakland Campus, PA, USA. Nestled amidst the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, Schenley Park, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, and the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History, this location provided an excellent setting for this event.

The Pittsburgh Diffraction Society (PDS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing fundamental and applied diffraction and crystallographic research, and fostering the exchange of ideas and information. The PDS was founded by Surain S. Sidhu, who organized the first Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference at the University of Pittsburgh 80 years ago in 1943.

The 2023 conference was attended by 127 registered participants, and featured 48 oral presentations and 20 poster presentations in sessions focused on all areas of diffraction, from applied science to protein crystallography. The conference was chaired by Simone Brixius-Anderko (University of Pittsburgh), who was supported by a team of over 16 organizers and session chairs from all over the country.

Preceding the main conference, a workshop on Phenix, which is a comprehensive software package for macromolecular structure determination, gathered 20 attendees led by the experts Dorothee Liebschner (LBNL), Tom Terwilliger (New Mexico Consortium), Pavel Afonine (LBNL) and Christopher Williams (Duke University).

The conference commenced with an opening reception on 15 October, followed by keynote lectures delivered by two former winners of the PDS Sidhu Award, which is given to outstanding scientists within six years of earning a PhD or equivalent. Erica Ollmann Saphire (the 2003 Sidhu awardee, now the head of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology) presented on the role of diffraction and CryoEM in fighting diseases in her talk "Antibodies against Emerging Infections: a Global Collaboration". Chong-Yu Ruan, awarded the Sidhu prize in 2005, reviewed recent developments in ultrafast electron diffraction in his talk on "Femtosecond Electron Crystallography and Microscopy: Recent Advances and Applications". The keynote lectures were followed by a Young Investigator Platform that allowed the upcoming researchers Tyra Douglas (ANL), Jordan Kelly (Duquesne), Vanessa Moresco (UC Riverside), Ari Selzer (Pitt), Sylwia Pawledzio (ORNL) and Giancarlo Gonzalez-Areizaga (Pitt), selected from student and postdoc poster submissions, to present their projects and findings in short presentations.

In the spirit of the 80th jubilee of the Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference were the closing sessions of the first day, provided by William Furey (Pitt) and John P. Rose (University of Georgia), with recollections from 46 years of Pittsburgh Diffraction Conferences, opening the birthday party, reception and cake, which was generously sponsored by Rigaku. The following karaoke session brought out sides of people very few expected.

The following day started with a keynote session presented by Andrew Kruse of Harvard ("Structural Basis for Antibody Fragment Modulation of a G Protein-Coupled Receptor"), after which the conference continued with two parallel sessions covering both physical and life sciences (also known as 'structural biology'). The structural biology section featured sessions on "Structure-Based Drug Design", "Synergy of Computation and Crystallography for Structural Biology" and "Crystallography meets CryoEM". The Physical Sciences sessions covered "Latest Developments at Light Sources", "Spins, Phonons, and Disordered States in Complex Materials" and "Investigating Materials' Structures and Properties using X-ray Diffraction Microscopy". Short presentations by vendors and sponsors, and poster sessions and presentations complemented the sessions, and the day ended with the traditional Banquet Dinner and some fun activities.

A keynote lecture by Daniel Shoemaker (UIUC) titled "Inorganic Quantum Crystallography: Discovering Materials in the Computer and in the Lab" started sessions on the 17th, followed again by parallel sessions covering "Structure-Property Relationships in Quantum and Layered Materials" and "Materials under High Pressure – Using Diffraction Techniques to Understand Synthesis Pathways, Phase Transitions and Phase Behaviors" for the Physical Sciences, and "High Pressure in Macromolecular Crystallography" and "General Interest and Cool Techniques" on the bio-side of crystallography. Short vendor presentations and more opportunities to meet at posters and talk to vendors enabled inspiring discussions. Cora Lind-Kovacs delivered a presentation on behalf of the American Association to Advance Powder Diffraction (AAAPD), outlining preliminary results that compared worldwide high-resolution powder diffraction at user facilities. The presentation raised concerns regarding the competitiveness of the user facilities within the United States.

The meeting was concluded by the Society's business meeting. The Chung Soo Yoo poster awards, established by the PDS in his honor, were given to the graduate students who presented the best posters at the conference: Michael P. Dalton (Stony Brook University) and Jordan Kelly (Duquesne). Simone Brixius-Anderko gave a summary of the conference and announced the winners of the vendor raffle, and Matthias Zeller gave an overview of the Society's finances in the Treasurer's report. Elections for positions on the PDS board were announced, and candidates for the offices of Treasurer and Secretary, as well as for Chair-Elect for 2025, were asked to come forward. The President of the PDS, Uta Ruett (ANL), asked for nominations for next year's Sidhu Award and for future hosts for the upcoming conferences. The business meeting was closed by next President-Elect Jeney Wierman, who invited the attendees to next year's Annual Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference at CHESS on the Cornell Campus in upstate New York, in October 2024. Please see the PDS website for upcoming details.

We would like to thank all our sponsors and exhibitors: University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, Argonne National Laboratory, MiTeGen, Art Robbins Instruments, Formulatrix, Crystal Positioning Systems, Rigaku Americas, Dectris, Anton Paar and STP Labtech, without whose support the conference would not have been possible. A special thanks also goes to Burroughs Wellcome Fund, which granted generously a proposal sent in by Denise Okafor (Penn State University) requesting travel support for selected attending students, postdocs and early career scientists for the conference.