Breaking Barriers to Go Beyond Structure: Describing Functional States and Biological Context

Preliminary Program

• Biological Cutting Edge Methodologies Across Scales
  (Eva Nogales / David Baker / Xiaowei Zhuang)
• Image Analysis and Validation Strategies for Heterogeneous Samples
  (Helen Saibil / Nikolaus Grigorieff / John Rubinstein)
• Structure in the Cellular Context
  (Wolfgang Baumeister / Elizabeth Villa / Daniela Nicastro)
• Interpretation and Validation of Low-Medium Resolution Cryo-EM Structures
  (Hong-Wei Wang / Gabriel Lander / Carolyn Moores)
• Selected Poster Presentations: Recent Advances in Cryo-EM Technical Development
  (Edward Egelman)
• Strategies for Atomic Modeling of High-Resolution Cryo-EM Structures
  (Steve Harrison / Paul Adams / Axel Brunger / Frank Dimaio / Simon Jennings / Alan Brown)
• Improving Sample Preparation
  (Holger Stark / Bridget Carragher / Robert Glaeser / Lori Passmore)
• Development and Use of Correlative Methodologies
  (Grant Jensen / Kay Gruenewald)
• Selected Poster Presentations: Recent Advances in the Application of Cryo-EM Methodology
  (Yifan Cheng)

L’objectif de ce deuxième rendez-vous de la communauté nationale est de proposer une formation théorique et appliquée aux différentes méthodes et techniques utilisées pour répondre à des questions biologiques (diffraction et diffusion des rayons X, RMN biologique, cryo-microscopie, techniques d’imagerie cellulaire et moléculaire, méthodes biophysique d’études et de caractérisation des interactions macromoléculaires). Il s’agira ici d’expliciter à un public essentiellement constitué de doctorantes et doctorants ou de jeunes chercheuses ou chercheurs, les apports et les limites de chaque méthode et de montrer leur complémentarité et les développements à venir.

Cet événement permettra de relier le côté expérimental de l'enzymologie aux méthodes prédictives en passant par le graphisme structural et moléculaire. La rencontre des deux groupes thématiques permettra, par exemple, le partage d'outils innovants pour l'avancée de la recherche dans chacun des domaines.

Deux demi-journées seront consacrées à des thématiques communes: "les enzymes comme cibles thérapeutiques" et "Ingénierie enzymatique et évolution dirigée".

Application of synchrotron tools

Plant & Agricultural Science

Researchers of plants and agricultural science who are interested in studying the structure and molecular composition of plants and plant related products are the target audience for this theme. The school will prepare participants for basic application of synchrotron techniques and provide practical experiences. The school will include exercises in proposal writing, sample preparation, data collection, interpretation and visualization. Participants will also get hands-on training using their own samples with different experimental stations at the Canadian Light Source (infrared, soft X-ray, and hard X-rays beamlines).

Art, Art History & Cultural Heritage

Scientists will have the opportunity to learn capabilities of synchrotron technology and how they can further research in the fields of archaeology, art culture anthropology, and paleontology. Participants will be introduced to synchrotron radiation, applicable techniques and examples of research already being done in Canada and around the world. Participants will get hands-on experience at two experimental stations. Participants are encouraged to bring their own sample to use in practical exercises. Faculty at Canadian institutions of higher learning in relevant fields of study as well as staff at Canadian museums are encouraged to apply.

Protein Synthesis and Beyond Keynote: Ada Yonath (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel) "Ribosomes for Medicine"

The workshop will focus on the following subjects:

-Manufacturing of high precision optical elements with synchrotron based lithography

-Material science with synchrotron radiation and neutron scattering offering for example characterisation of residual stresses in various components

-Macromolecular protein crystallography at our MX-beamlines

Presentations by industrial users and researchers will be given at Berlin Adlershof. The one day workshop is free of charge to the participants. A tour into the experimental hall of the synchrotron is possible if wanted.Â

We are pleased to announce the second International Summer School of Crystallography at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science at DESY, Hamburg (D). Prof. Carmelo Giacovazzo will lecture on the basics of crystallography, covering mathematical understanding of crystallographic point and space groups, diffraction experiments, structure factor calculations, systematic absences, determination of space groups, background of phasing for structure determination of biomolecules and many additional topics. Participants will also learn modern applications and instrumentation of protein crystallography experiments at advanced light sources, such as 3rd generation synchrotron and XFELs.

Speakers:

Prof. Carmelo Giacovazzo (University of Bari),

Prof. Henry Chapman (CFEL / DESY, University of Hamburg),

Prof. Arwen Pearson (CUI, University of Hamburg),

Dr Thomas Schneider (EMBL), Dr. Gleb Bourenkov (EMBL),

Dr Adrian Mancuso (European X-FEL),

Dr Thomas White (CFEL / DESY)

The summer school program is geared for PhD students working in the field of crystallography, but exceptions for motivated PostDocs and MSc students can be made. The course will mostly cover mathematical background of crystallography, hence we are looking for students, having a (bio)physics background. This will NOT be a workshop covering protein crystallographic programs but rather will be theory oriented.

Besides the lessons there will be guided tours of PETRAIII/European XFEL, a BBQ and a harbor boat trip scheduled.

Accepted applicants will be asked to pay a registration fee of approx. 100 EUR (includes coffee breaks and lunch). In addition, participants will have to pay for their own travel expenses, accommodation will cost 70 EUR at the DESY Guest House (the rest will be covered by the school budget).

The application deadline is on the 15th of March, 2015. Notification of accepted applicants will be sent end of March. Places and accommodation are limited to 30 students in total.

The application is as simple as follows:

Applicants must provide a motivation letter, as well as, a CV, directly to the organizer Cornelius Gati ([email protected]).

Developing the Synergy between Biophysics and Medicinal Chemistry to Deliver Better Drugs

The use of biophysical techniques in drug discovery is rapidly increasing, and many pharmaceutical companies have set up in-house biophysical platforms to speed up the target-to-candidate process and improve the quality of small-molecule therapeutics through a better understanding of their interactions with their targets.

However, biophysics for drug discovery had not yet been the subject of a dedicated conference: most of the time, it is the topic of a specialised session within drug discovery conferences, and on the other hand biophysical meetings are often very academy-oriented and rarely extend their scope to drug discovery aspects.

Aiming at filling this gap, the first NovAliX Conference 'Biophysics in Drug Discovery', which was held in October 2013 in Strasbourg, France, was a real success, attracting more than 160 people from 20 countries.

Bringing together the medchem and biophysics communities, the conference, with a 2/1 ratio of participants from industry/academia, was a dense and rich event with lively discussions after presentations, around the posters and during the round table.

The second edition of the conference intends to further develop the synergy between biophysics and medicinal chemistry, which is key to deliver better drugs on a shorter timeline. The following topics will be discussed during the conference:

• Method Development & Emerging Technologies
• Biophysics for Integral Membrane Proteins
• Impact of Biophysics on Drug Discovery Projects
• Use of Kinetics in Drug Discovery
• Epigenetics (Special Focus of the conference)

The Scientific Programme will be completed by a large Poster Session, a Commercial Exhibition as well as an interesting Social Programme around Strasbourg, a city of culture, home of the European Parliament and a UNESCO landmark.

With the increased demand for APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients) to reach the marketplace, chemists in early stage development are expected to have a greater understanding of solid form and crystallisation. This single day event, presented by a selection of industrialists and academics in their field of expertise, will provide an introduction to this area, specifically initial crystallisation experiments, solid form selection and formulation and how these matters are handled using real industrial examples.

Lectures

• Crystallisation: why, what, how and when? Dr Simon Black, AstraZeneca
• Title to be advised, Prof Alistair Florence, University of Strathclyde
• Understanding the crystal morphology of molecular crystals from a solid-state and interfacial chemistry perspective, Prof Kevin Roberts, University of Leeds
• Cocrystals; synthesis, properties and medicinal chemistry, Prof Kim James, Peakdale
• Caffeine and Paracetamol: small molecules for big headaches, Dr Kreso Bucar, UCL
• Polymorphism studies of a preclinical candidate in a CRO environment. Lessons learnt (again), Dr David Pearson, Charles River Laboratories

The aim of this School is to provide a comprehensive foundation for researchers in the field of soft matter, liquids and complex fluids

The lectures will introduce key topics of current interest together with the theoretical, experimental and computer simulation approaches used to address them. The School is directed towards postgraduate students from a wide range of backgrounds including physics, chemistry, chemical engineering and biophysics.

The school will start with a welcome reception early evening on Sunday 12 April and finish with lunch on Thursday 16 April. There will be lectures on Liquid Crystals, Polymer Physics, Biophysics and Neutron Scattering & Disordered materials.

the main topics will be:

• Atomic spectrometry (ICP OES, ICP-MS, GD, AAS, etc.);
• Molecular spectrometry (UV-Vis, NMR, Raman, IR, etc.);
• Organic and inorganic mass spectrometry (TIMS, MALDI, LC-MS, GC-MS);
• X-ray spectrometry (XRF, XRD, XANES, PIXE, etc.);
• Hyphenated techniques;
• Laser spectroscopy;
• Imaging techniques;
• Nuclear techniques (Mössbauer spectroscopy, Gamma spectroscopy, NAA);
• Material sciences (micro, surface and interface analysis);
• Environmental and geochemical analysis;
• Archaeometry and cultural heritage;
• Biological applications;
• Food analysis;
• Clinical and pharmaceutical analysis;
• Speciation analysis;
• Mass spectrometry in post-genomics and proteomics;
• Miniaturisation and nanotechnology;
• Fuels and biofuels;

The meeting will follow the first similar conference (MultiPole-1) that was organized in November 2011, but with a modified scope. The purpose of the upcoming MultiPole-2 conference, which is organized in the wake of and as a summary of the International Year of Crystallography IYCr2014, is to discuss the advances in all aspects of structural sciences that have been promoted with the participation of scientists with Polish roots and/or with significant links to Poland, whether working in Poland or abroad. Although the focal point is crystallography, the scope encompasses all areas that are concerned with the study of the structure of matter, with emphasis on structural biology and structural chemistry. Participation of all interested scientists is encouraged. It is expected that presentations by the invited lecturers, as well as by speakers chosen from the abstracts, will show that investing in science and science education is the best option for Poland and that Polish scientists can and do have very successful careers. For students and young researchers it should become a venue to find positive career models and inspiration for fascinating interdisciplinary research in structural sciences.

Invited Speakers

• Matthias Bochtler International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Warsaw, Poland
  Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Warsaw, Poland
• Dominika Borek University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA
• Krzysztof Brzezinski University of Białystok, Poland
• Marek Brzozowski University of York, United Kingdom
• Grzegorz Bujacz Technical University of Łódz, Poland
• Janusz Bujnicki International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Warsaw, Poland
  Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
• Maksymilian Chruszcz University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA
• Marek Cieplak Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw, Poland
• Tomasz Cierpicki University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
• Miroslaw Cygler University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada
• Zbigniew Dauter National Cancer Institute, Argonne, IL, USA
• Zygmunt Derewenda University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA
• Andrzej Dziembowski Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
• Maria Gdaniec Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
• Jolanta Grembecka University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
• Pawel Grochulski University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada
• Robert Janowski Helmholtz Zentrum, Munich, Germany
• Mariusz Jaskólski Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
  Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań, Poland
• Andrzej Joachimiak Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, USA
• Krzysztof Jozwiak Medical University of Lublin, Poland
• Andrzej Koliński University of Warsaw, Poland
• Lukasz Lebioda University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA
• Janusz Lipkowski Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Warsaw, Poland
• Jacek Lubkowski National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD, USA
• Karolina Majorek Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
  University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
• Karolina Michalska Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, USA
• Wladek Minor University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
• Piotr Neumann University of Göttingen, Germany
• Wieslaw Nowak Nicholas Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland
• Marcin Nowotny International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Warsaw, Poland
• Zbyszek Otwinowski University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA
• Agnieszka Pietrzyk Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
• Waldemar Priebe University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA
• Urszula Rychlewska Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
• Wojciech Rypniewski Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań, Poland
• Piotr Setny University of Warsaw, Poland
• Tadeusz Skarzynski Agilent Technologies, Oxford, United Kingdom
• Joanna Sulkowska University of Warsaw, Poland
• Marcin Suskiewicz Vienna Biocenter, VBC, Vienna, Austria
• Marta Szachniuk Poznan University of Technology, Poland
  Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Poznań, Poland
• Joanna Trylska University of Warsaw, Poland
• Alexander Wlodawer National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD, USA
• Krzysztof Wozniak University of Warsaw, Poland

Special Plenary Speaker

• Ada Yonath Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
  Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2009

Special Guest

• Iain Mattaj EMBL Heidelberg
  Director General
  (TBC)

The CSSB Spring School will provide an introduction to advanced biophysical approaches for Structural Systems Biology.Â

• Courses in sample preparation and analysis, advanced microscopy, single particle analysis, structure determination at atomic resolution and modeling of structure and dynamic of complexes.
• It will allow young researchers (experienced students, PhD students and postdocs) to view challenging problems from interdisciplinary scientific topics like Infection Biology from various methodical angles. Â

The material will be presented in form of lectures, demonstrations and practical work.

The research focus of the 1st CSSB International Symposium will be on state-of-the-art systems biology approaches, embedded into complementary research directions such as structural biology and infection biology. It will feature top-class international research talks in five related scientific sessions and will end with a concluding session on future perspectives of the field. The symposium will be supported by the Joachim Herz Foundation.

Preliminary Programme

• Session 1: Areas in infection biology requiring system biology approaches
• Session 2: “Omics” in infection biology
• Session 3: Protein-Ligand interactions “at all levels”
• Session 4: Structural biology as a “high end” method in systems biology
• Session 5a: Modeling of experimental Omics data
• Session 5b: Biotechnical Applications of Systems Biology
• Session 6: Panel Discussion: What's next? Functional follow-up questions

One place, six conferences covering hot science trends. The main focus will be on Nanoscience & Nanotechnology in the fields of Graphene, Bio/Medicine, Optics, Photonics, Chemistry, Toxicology. Internationally renowned speakers will offer the attendees exceptional opportunities. The latest trends and discoveries in N&N from some of the world´s leading players in the field will be discussed.

Graphene2015

• Other 2 dimensional materials (Transition metal dichalcogenides, phosphorene, silicene, BN, topological insulators,....)
• Growth, synthesis techniques and integration methods
• Spectroscopies (Optics, Raman, EELS) and microscopies (HRTEM, STM, AFM)
• Chemistry of Graphene
• Quantum transport
• Magnetism and Spintronics
• Nanoelectromechanical systems
• Applications (gas sensors, composites, nanoelectronic devices...)

NanoSpain2015

NanoSpain Conference has been organized over the past 11 years and is a reference meeting of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (N&N) in Spain. Over the past years, NanoSpain conference became more and more multidisciplinary and 2015 won’t be an exception. Nanospain 2015 will change its format and will be divided into 4 thematic conferences in order to deepen the current research in different themes. The conference NanoSpain 2015 will also serve as a link between industry and researchers.

PPM2015: Photonics, Plasmonics, Magneto-Optics

Light-matter interactions, the recent advances in fabrication techniques, and the trends to compactness makes photonics to work more and more on the nanoscale. This makes this a broad field where developments based on nanostructured dielectrics, semiconductors and metals leads to applications and devices in which electromagnetic field can be generated, manipulated and controlled in sub-wavelength structures. The materials employed cover a wide range: organic, metallic, ceramic, magnetic, and dielectric. The clever choice or combination from such a wide variety of materials enables the development of novel applications with on-demand optical properties. Applications that will lead to technological advances span from information technologies to energy harvesting and biosensing.
The conference aim is to bring together top researchers and future leaders encouraging interactions between students, young speakers, and senior figures in the field. The topics will cover the experimental and theoretical aspects of light interaction with nanoscale objects and nanostructured materials, focusing on dielectric materials tailored on the nanoscale, metalic materials exploiting their capability to sustain plasmon excitations, and magneto-optical materials that, on one side, allow external modification of the optical properties, and, on the other, are non-reciprocal permitting to envisage structures that are immune to backscattering.

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The conference is organised by the iThemba Laboratory for Accelerator-Based Sciences, a group of multi-disciplinary research laboratories administered by the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the Department of Sciences and Technology (DST) of the Republic of South Africa

The PIXE conference is a biennial event with a long tradition of being the international forum to discuss recent developments and future prospects in particle induced X-ray spectrometry. The conference brings together physicists and scientists from different fields of application including biology and medicine, environmental and earth sciences, cultural heritage and materials research.

Topics

• Fundamental processes of ionisation, X-ray emission and absorption
• Fundamental parameter
• PIXE software
• PIXE methodology and facilities
• PIXE of complex and layered samples (mapping, depth profiling)
• Confocal PIXE and PIXE tomography
• Atmospheric aerosols
• Environmental and earth sciences
• Extra-terrestrial applications
• Biology and medicine
• Forensic science
• Archaeometry and Cultural Heritage
• Materials Science