IUCr Journals News

We are pleased to announce that Jon Agirre will take over as Editor-in-Chief of IUCr Journals from Andrew Allen in January 2027. Andrew will step down after more than eight years at the helm of IUCr Journals.

Obituary

Professor Ada E. Yonath, who died on 31 August 2026 at the age of 87, changed structural biology by pursuing an experiment that many experienced scientists thought was impossible. For more than two decades, she worked toward determining the atomic structure of the ribosome, the enormous and flexible ribonucleoprotein machine responsible for translating genetic information into proteins.

Feature article

When an email landed in my inbox announcing that our research team had won the 2026 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry, my initial reaction wasn't triumph; it was suspicion. Between the surreal subject line and references to paper aeroplanes and novelty Zimbabwean currency, I was convinced it was either an elaborate phishing scam or a prank pulled by a colleague.

Feature article

Before the first crystal, there was a corner.

Meeting Report (IUCr supported)

The 12th Zürich School of Crystallography was held as usual in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Zürich (UZH). The 19 participants, 12 female and 7 male, comprised one BSc, 2 MSc and 13 PhD students, and 3 postdocs. They came from 13 countries: Brazil, Costa Rica, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and the USA.

Meeting Report

I am a PhD student in inorganic chemistry working with continuous SerialED and dynamical effects in electron diffraction data. My research is focused on how orientation-dependent effects influence diffraction intensities, and how such effects can be handled during early data processing, scaling and merging.

Meeting Report (IUCr supported)

The 11th European Crystallography School (ECS11) was held in Stockholm, Sweden, at the Department of Chemistry of Stockholm University (SU) from June 28 to July 3, 2026, followed by an optional excursion on July 4.

IUCr Activities

At the IUCr Congress in Calgary in August, the IUCr Executive Committee approved a proposal to establish an Advisory Committee on Industrial Structural Science.

Book review

Elspeth F. Garman and Nicola Laurieri have brought their experience of teaching mathematics at the University of Oxford to Mathematics for Biosciences: From Theory to Worked Examples and Applications, published by World Scientific.

Editorial

Cryo-electron microscopy is transforming the study of membrane proteins and large molecular assemblies. In an IUCrJ editorial, Richard Henderson and S. Samar Hasnain mark ten years of the journal’s dedicated cryoEM section and introduce a special issue exploring the field’s progress.

Feature article

The loosest known regular sphere packing (with only 5.5% of the 3D space filled by the spheres) was described by Heesch & Laves (HL, 1933) almost a century ago (Dauter & Jaskolski, 2026). It has cubic I4₁32 symmetry and consists of 24 symmetry-equivalent spheres per unit cell, propagated from a certain point on the two-fold axis of this space group.

Advertising feature

From crystalline phase evolution to nanoscale porosity, Anton Paar’s X-ray solutions reveal how structure determines material performance

Feature article

When Mary Helene Marmande and Bailey Baxter travelled to Japan for eight weeks of undergraduate research, they expected to develop their skills as chemists. They returned with contributions to a crystallographic publication, greater confidence in their scientific abilities and a lasting appreciation of the community that had welcomed them.

Obituary

We are deeply saddened to report that Anthony Powell, Professor of Solid-State Materials Chemistry at the University of Reading, died on 22 May 2026 at age 62 after a long illness.

Commentary

Why early crystal structures still matter

How well do crystallography’s earliest structure determinations stand up to modern scrutiny? In Acta Crystallographica Section B, Andrzej Katrusiak discusses a reassessment of 464 historical structures in the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database.

Commentary

Using structural data to guide cocrystal design

Choosing suitable molecular partners is a central challenge in designing cocrystals with useful properties. Paolo P.

Articles from the journals

How has the quality of published crystal structures changed over time? In Acta Crystallographica Section C, Florian Meurer examines entries in the Cambridge Structural Database, analysing the available quality indicators in relation to publication year and elemental composition.