As a part of the commemoration of the International Year of Crystallography, the Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (CNSNT), Sathyabama University, is conducting this workshop.

Topics to be covered

• Crystallography and powder diffraction
• Characterization of nanomaterials using XRD
• Thin films (polycrystalline and epitaxial) and their characterization using XRD
  
• High temperature and high pressure XRS in materials science and metallurgy
  
• Applications of X-ray synchrotron radiation
  
• Grazing incidence X-ray reflectivity (XRR)
• Small molecule crystal structures
• Recent advancements in XRD
• XRD software for data analysis

The conference will cover research in all aspects of the chemistry and physics of organic solids, with lectures focused on the following topics:

• Crystallization Processes
• Polymorphism
• Crystal Engineering
• Pharmaceutical Materials
• Molecular Motions in Crystals
• Chemical Reactions in Organic Solids
• Biomaterials
• Crystal Structure Prediction
• Chirality in Organic Crystals
• Inclusion Compounds and Supramolecular Materials
• Mechanochemistry of Organic Solids
• Metal-organic Frameworks
• Nano-structured Organic Materials
• Organic Polymers
• Amorphous Organic Solids
• Liquid Crystals
• Optical, Electrical, and Magnetic Properties
• Industrial Applications of Organic Solids
• Experimental and Computational Techniques

Confirmed Speakers

• Joanna Aizenberg, Harvard University
• Kunio Awaga, Nagoya University
• Graeme M. Day, University of Southampton
• Robert Dinnebier, Max Planck Institute for Solid-State Research, Stuttgart
• Karl-Heinz Ernst, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology
• Tomislav Friscic, McGill University
• Makoto Fujita, University of Tokyo
• Miguel A. Garcia-Garibay, University of California, Los Angeles
• Kenneth D.M. Harris, Cardiff University
• Masahiro Irie, Rikkyo University
• Bart Kahr, New York University
• Yuji Ohashi, Tokyo Institute of Technology
• Masami Sakamoto, Chiba University
• Lian Yu, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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The aim is to provide MX users with sufficient training to be able to operate any of the Diamond MX beamlines efficiently and to get the most benefit from their beamtime. The training will involve hands-on sessions on the suite of five operational MX beamlines (http://www.diamond.ac.uk/mx-home/) as well as offline software sessions.

Sessions include:

4th December, day session on MX beamlines:

 *  MX software: automation in data analysis
 *  Mini-Kappa goniometry / Anomalous data collection
 *  Sample humidity control (HC1)
 *  I24 new end station
 *  In-situ diffraction
 *  Experiment database: new ISPyB

5th December, morning session: Hands on software in
three tutorial sessions:

 *  CCP4: MR and experimental phasing (CCP4 team)
 *  Manual processing iMosflm (Harry Powell)
 *  Multi crystal analysis / BLEND (James Foadi)


Registration is free-of-charge with lunch provided on the 4th and 5th December, and accommodation and dinner for the nights of the 3rd and 4th December. Travelling expenses within the UK will also be provided. The training is targeted at all users, and is not limited to students and post docs. It is essential that each BAG sends at least one representative per calendar year.

Registration
Places are limited to twenty five participants. The registration deadline is on the 20th November.
Registration is now open

Chair:Â Alexandre Bonvin

Vice Chair:Â Valerie Daggett

The Gordon Research Conference on Computational Aspects of Biomolecular NMR provides a unique forum for the presentation and discussion of emerging methods at the intersection of experimental Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), computational methods and other complementary biophysical techniques.

NMR is one of the most versatile methods for the investigation of biomolecular systems, whether these are proteins, nucleic acids, glycans, membranes, or functioning cellular and in vivo systems. In the modern toolbox of researchers, NMR is one of the well-established methods, which, in combination with other complementary biophysical and computational methods, contributes to our understanding and diagnosis of disease, the development of therapeutics to combat disease and the engineering of novel or improved biomolecules with a wide range of applications in heath, food and materials. NMR can provide unique structural, dynamical and functional information to achieve these goals. Continuous advances are pushing back the frontiers of NMR in numerous application fields, enabling the study of systems of ever increasing complexity and/or in more natural, cellular environments. All these can, however, only be achieved by integrating new types of data and learning to use them in combination with other experimental information sources. Computational methods, whose importance for the field has been recognized by the awarding of the 2013 Nobel prize in chemistry, play here a key role in this integration process.

This GRC conference will bring together practitioners in NMR, computational structural biology and other complementary biophysical techniques for the purpose of generating new ideas and promoting collaborations in order to generate the next generation of integrative methods that will allow us to tackle ever more challenging systems.

The 2015 meeting, which will take place at the beautiful location of Il Ciocco in Toscane. It will have sessions devoted to advances in integrative structural biology, complementary biophysical techniques, frontiers in solid state NMR, signal processing, intrinsically disordered systems and interactions, ligand interactions and metabolomics, conformational variability and challenges in structure determination. Further, the importance of NMR for industry will be highlighted in a dedicated session. The prominent list of speakers, along with the small format of the conference, will provide unique opportunities for graduate students, postdocs, and those new to this research area, to discuss their research with leaders in the field. Extensive poster sessions, along with promoted talks, will facilitate this process.

A Gordon Research Seminar on "Molecular Simulation for the Interpretation of NMR Data" will precede the conference. Besides providing an excellent opportunity for graduate students and postdocs to become familiar with the atmosphere of a Gordon Conference, the Seminar will feature keynote talks from leaders in the field and speaking slots for a number of students and postdocs. Application for the Seminar and Conference are separate, and those interested should consult the Seminar description.

Preliminary Program

A list of preliminary session topics and speakers is displayed below (discussion leaders are noted in italics). The detailed program is currently being developed by the Conference Chair and will be available by February 7, 2015. Please check the conference website for updates.

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• Keynote Session: Advances in Integrative Structural Biology
  (Antonio Rosato / Andrej Sali / Adam Lange)
• Conformational Variability and Dynamics
  (Andrew Baldwin / Christian Griesinger / Claudio Luchinat / Arthur Palmer / David Fushman)
• NMR and Computations in Industry
  (Ben Davis / Greg Siegal / Michael Schaefer / Chun-Wa Chung)
• Ligand Interactions and Metabolomics
  (Giovanna Musco / Robert Konrat / James Prestergard / Rafael Bruschweiler / David Wishart)
• Signal Processing
  (Christina Redfield / Jeffrey Hoch / Tatyana Polenova / Vladislav Orekhov)
• Pushing the Limits of Solid State NMR
  (Tatyana Polenova / Marc Baldus / Mei Hong / Lyndon Emsley / Anne Ulrich)
• Frontiers of NMR: Complementary Methods
  (Alexandre Bonvin / Pau Bernardo / Alexander Leitner / Holger Stark)
• Challenges in Structure Determination
  (Torsten Herrmann / Ad Bax / Tobias Madl / Chad Rienstra / Angela Gronenborn)
• Intrinsically Disordered Systems and Interactions
  (Valerie Daggett / Frans Mulder / Carine Van Heijenoort / Martin Blackledge)

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Scientific Organisers

PCaPAC 2014 will be hosted by the ANKA Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Karlsruhe, Germany. PCaPAC traditionally focuses on low cost control systems using PC technology for control and data acquisition systems. PCaPAC 2014 also has a focus on emerging technologies such as:

• Control systems (Status reports, Control system frameworks (EPICS, Tango, Tine), Network design, Reliability and longevity of control systems)
• User interfaces and Data Displays (mobile systems, web services and other)
• Cyber security (Gateways, Internet connectivity and other)
• Hardware technologies (DSP, FPGA and devices, Accelerator specific development, Timing System PC busses and other)
• Modern Data Acquisition (commercial off-the-shelf systems, (real-time) operating systems. embedded systems, PLC´s, IOC´s and other)
• Management of Software projects (Development processes, Quality Assurance, In time development and other)
• Databases (Control DBs, extremely large databases, noSQL DBs and other)

Protein-Protein interactions (PPIs) play central role in the regulation of biological processes. After more than a decade spent struggling to discover what features of a protein are ‘druggable’, the modulation of proteinâ€"protein interactions (PPIs) has emerged from both academic and corporate research as a promising therapeutic strategy to treat human disease. As such, PPI modulators (PPIMs) are the next generation of highly innovative drugs that will reach the market in the next decade. The challenge now is to develop techniques, chemistry and knowhow required to rationally identify new targets and design potential PPI modifying compounds. This is very different from generating small molecules that target the catalytic sites of enzymes and will require different approaches in terms of chemistry, screening assays, in silico modeling and cellular techniques, not to mention the need of basic understanding of PPI biophysics. The EMBO Workshop aims to bring together experts from various fields who work on understanding and modulating PPIs and also to create a competitive European network.

Topics:

• PPI: New Targets / In Cells
• PPI: Technological Advances / Methods
• PPI analysis: Docking/Energetics/Prediction
• PPI modulation: Successful Examples
• PPI modulation: Chemical Biology / Chemoinformatics

ECCB'14 is the key European computational biology event in 2014 gathering scientists working at the intersection of a broad range of disciplines including computer science, mathematics, biology, and medicine. New challenges are emerging today in these fields with the recent advances in low-cost ultra-fast sequencing, bio-imaging and big-data approaches. Databases and software are evolving especially rapidly. Nonetheless, new algorithms are still required to improve computing with massive biological or biomedical data. Indeed, multi-scale integrative analyses are struggling to deal with the enormous complexity of biological systems modeling and the "data deluge" that results from next-generation sequencing technologies.

Participation at ECCB'14 will be the prime opportunity to keep pace with cutting-edge research in such exciting topics, and to network with other members of our community.Â

International Workshop on Phase Retrieval and Coherent Scattering

The International Workshop on Phase Retrieval and Coherent Scattering is a (mostly) biennial meeting series devoted to coherent X-ray physics. Four topics in particular will be covered:

• Imaging with coherent X-rays and electrons
• Structure and dynamics via photon correlation
• Opportunities with new sources
• Theoretical and computational methods

Previous conferences in the series have been at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, USA, May 2001; Palm Cove, Australia, June 2003; Porquerolles, France, June 2005; Asilomar, California, USA, June 2007; Warnemünde, Germany, June 2010; and Fukuoka, Japan, June 2012. In keeping with the tradition of waterside locations for most of these meetings, the conference will be held at Norris Center on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, on the shore of Lake Michigan.

Invited Speakers

• Henry Chapman (keynote)
• Christian Schroer
• Stephan Hruszkewycz
• Yukio Takahashi
• Felisa Berenguer
• Mark Sutton (keynote)
• Jesse Clark
• Sujoy Roy
• Beatrice Ruta
• Massimo Altarelli
• Christoph Quitmann
• Gabriella Carini

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8th USPEX workshop

2014 Topics

Biomacromolecular complexes and assemblies (protein-RNA/DNA complexes, e.g., viruses, ribosomes; quaternary protein structures; DNA, proteins, polyelectrolytes). The lecturers will describe related problems and discuss approaches to solutions, e.g.:

• spectroscopies (NMR, EPR, FTIR, Raman, MS…)
• microscopies (AFM, fluorescence techniques, tweezers…)
• diffraction methods
• computational solutions, modeling and simulations

Lecturers

• Nenad Ban, ETH, Zürich, Switzerland: Protein structure & function; X-ray diffraction
  • Ribosomes and their functional complexes
  • Beyond the prokaryotic ribosome
• Jasna Brujic, NYU, New York, USA: Soft matter, statistical physics; single molecule experiments-AFM
  • Emulsions and packing
  • Single-molecule AFM studies
• Mario Cindrić, RuÄ'er BoÅ¡ković Institute
  • Mass Spectrometry for protein sequencing
• Yves Engelborghs, KU Leuven, Belgium: Fluorescence microscopy and spectroscopy
  • Time resolved fluorescence spectroscopy of proteins
  • Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy : an elegant way to study molecular interactions.
• Helmut Grubmueller (COST lecturer), MPI-BPC, Göttingen, Germany: Theoretical and Computational Biophysics
  • Forces and Conformational Dynamics in Biomolecular Nanomachines 1,2
• Jané Kondev, Brandeis University, USA
  • Chromosome Folding in Cells
  • Transcriptional Regulation
• Pierre-Emmanuel Milhiet, Centre de Biochimie Structurale, Montpellier, France: High-performance AFM, membrane proteins imaging
  • Near field microscopies in structural biology
    
  • AFM imaging in the field of biological membranes
  • New developments in Bio-AFM imaging
• Lennart Nilsson, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden: Molecular modeling, nucleic acids, peptides and their interactions
• Chris Oostenbrink, UNRLF, Vienna, Austria: Structure and dynamics of biomolecules; modeling
  • Ensembles and sampling, leading to molecular dynamics simulations
  • Structure refinement using molecular dynamics simulations (NMR observables)
  • Calculation of free energies from molecular simulation
• Frances Separovic, University of Melbourne, Australia: NMR and Structural Studies of Membrane-Active Peptides
  • Solid-state NMR of membrane-active peptides
  • Membrane interactions of antimicrobial and amyloid peptides
• Ana-Sunčana Smith, RuÄ'er BoÅ¡ković Institute & Uni Erlangen-Nürnberg Germany: Membranes and vesicles, cell adhesion
  • Membranes, from self assembly to rafts 1,2,3
• Holger Stark, MPI-BPC, Göttingen, Germany: Protein structure& function; cryoEM
  • Introduction into single particle cryo-EM
  • High-resolution structure determination of macromolecular complexes by cryo-EM
• Heinz-Jürgen Steinhoff (COST lecturer), University of Osnabrück, Germany: Macromolecular Structure, EPR
  • Principles of site-directed spin labeling EPR
  • Site-directed spin labeling EPR of biomacromolecules, complexes and assemblies
• Antonio Å iber, Institute of physics, Zagreb, Croatia: Physics of viruses
  • Physics of viruses: electrostatics, elasticity and DNA condensation in viruses 1,2,3
• Iva Tolić, RuÄ'er BoÅ¡ković Institute & MPI-CBG, Dresden, Germany & RBI, Zagreb: Physics of cells, fluorescence-microscopy
  • Microtubules and motor proteins 1, 2
• Anthony Watts, Department of Biochemistry, Oxford, UK: Protein structure& function; solid state NMR
  • Principles of solid state NMR for the study of biomolecules
  • Solid state NMR for structural studies of large integral membrane proteins
  • Receptor dynamics and structure in membranes resolved using solid state NMR
• Bojan Žagrović, MFPL, Vienna, Austria: Computational Biophysics of Macromolecules
  • More dynamic than we think? On conformational averaging in structural biology 1, 2
  • Protein-RNA interactions and the origin of the genetic code

Program Committee

• Dr. Sanja Tomić RuÄ'er BoÅ¡ković Institute, Zagreb, Croatia (chair)
• Dr. Fraser MacMillan, CM1306 COST Action Chair, University of East-Anglia, UK
• Prof. Ana-Sunčana Smith Uni Erlangen-Nürnberg Germany, Germany
• Dr. Antonio Å iber Institute of Physics, Zagreb, Croatia
• Dr. Iva Tolić MPI-CBG, Dresden, Germany
• Prof. Bojan Žagrović Max F. Perutz Laboratories GmbH, Laboratory of Computational Biophysics Department of Structural and Computational Biology, Campus Vienna, Austria

The 2014 IUCr Crystallographic Computing School will take place at La Cité collégiale in Ottawa, Canada. It will introduce modern methods of programming crystallographic calculations in a series of lectures and in-depth tutorials by leading crystallographic software developers. Our teachers are drawn from across the crystallographic world and include experts in protein, small-molecule and powder crystallography. By working together, we aim to share what we know with the next generation of crystallographic developers.

The School is intended for senior postgraduates and postdocs in all areas of crystallography (including macro- and small-molecule crystallography, powder diffraction, and small-angle scattering) who may want to become involved in software development, but lack experience in this.

The registration fee will be C$325; self-catering accommodation in College apartments is available from C$50 a night.

The registration deadline is June 27th 2014.

SMARTER4 is the latest in a series of meetings on resolving structural questions by the combined use of NMR, diffraction and computation. The format of and scale of meeting is designed to encourage cross-fertilisation across subject boundaries, with keynote speakers chosen to reflect the diversity of approaches required to solve complex structural problems, such as obtaining crystal structures from powdered samples or understanding disordered systems.

SMARTER stands for Structure elucidation by coMbining mAgnetic Resonance, compuTation modEling and diffRactions.

Molecular Modelling 2014: From biomolecules to materials is the next conference of the Association of Molecular Modellers of Australasia (AMMA). The conference will be held in the Gold Coast hinterland in South-East Queensland in the lush rainforest of Lamington National Park, at the O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat.

The themes of the conference will include molecular dynamics and quantum chemistry simulations of materials, methodological developments in hierarchical modelling, computer-aided drug design and cheminformatics.

The meeting will organised similarly to a Gordon Conference with presentations in the morning, late afternoon and evening but time in the middle of the day to interact with other delegates and enjoy the unique location.

The main conference will be on 31 Julyâ€"2 August 2014. The conference will be preceded by a forum for PhD students and Early-Career Researchers (ECRs) on 30 July and 31 July 2014.