We are happy to announce VI-th National Crystallographic Symposium (NCS2016) that will be held on October 05-07, 2016, Sofia, Bulgaria.

As you may have already recognized this is will be the sixth "NCS" of the series started in 2009.

We have already started the preparation of the next issue of the conference (submitted manuscripts will be published in the journal “Bulgarian Chemical Communications”, a special issues due April 2017).NCS16 papers will also be online available in full text via the present platform.  You are warmly invited to come and join us!

NCS2016 is held under the auspices of BCS and is the major event on Crystallography, crystal growth, structure analyses and related techniques in Bulgaria. The Symposium aims at the applications of different crystallographic techniques in combination with other methods in the fields of materials sciences, mineralogy, biology, environmental engineering, computational methods etc. Bringing together researchers from different areas NCS16 will provide them with a high-qualified platform for them to share their latest studies and to assist further findings and collaboration.

With passionate participants from the world, NCS2016 Â would be perfect for you to present your research and find collaboration for your future work.

This intensive five day residential course will cover sample preparation and cryo-microscopy techniques for both scanning and transmission electron microscopy, and will comprise tutorials, demonstrations and hands on practical sessions.
The course is aimed at life sciences however the techniques can be applied to other fields so participants from any area of academia or industry who are interested in learning cryo-microscopy skills or updating their knowledge are invited to attend.

The course will be taught by professionals from both academia and industry on a range of equipment and will allow time for one-to-one queries and demonstrations if needed: as such, numbers for the course are limited so secure your space by registering early!
Delegates are invited to bring samples with them to try on the equipment for themselves.

 This course is hosted by Rothamsted Research Centre and the Royal Microscopical Society.

Motor Mechanisms from Single Molecules to Cellular Function

Advancing and Reshaping Structural Biology with Electron Cryo-Microscopy

Active, Adaptive, and Responsive Biointerfaces

This EMBO Practical Course aims to train young scientists in the available techniques in the Correlative Light Electron Microscopy field of life science.

Students will be given a theoretical overview of available techniques and importantly the rationale why a particular method is applied to a specific scientific question will be discussed. Following the theoretical part students will get hands on experience of most of the techniques and they will be provided with practical tips and tricks by the experienced teaching staff.

This course aims at having a strong interaction / discussion between the students and the lecturers, where students are encouraged to challenge the techniques, propose alternatives, and discuss how CLEM can be applied to their own specific research questions. To this end a lot of the work will be performed in small groups with a high staff to student ratio (almost 1:1).

Keynote Lecture

Dr Sandra JACOB (NOVARTIS INSTITUTES FOR BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH, Basel, Switzerland)

Session 1 : Emerging Technologies

Dr Gebhard F. X. SCHERTLER (PAUL SCHERRER INSTITUTE, Villigen, Switzerland)

Session 2 : Biophysics for Challenging Targets

Prof. Ben SCHULER (UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH, Switzerland)

Session 3 : Special Focus on Cryo-EM

Prof. Holger STARK (MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR BIOPHYSICAL CHEMISTRY, Göttingen, Germany)

Session 4 : Computational Biophysics

Prof. Rebecca WADE (UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG, Germany)

Session 5 : Cellular Biophysics

Prof. Suzi JARVIS (UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, Ireland)

Session 6 : Biophysics for Biotherapeutics

Dr Jim BRYSON (BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB R&D, New York, USA)

• Optimizing data collection with direct electrons detectors and exploiting movies.
• Full data set automatic CTF correction.
• Correction of anisotropic magnification.
• Reaching atomic resolution without reference bias: alignment-by-classification (ABC) refinement procedures.
• Unbiased "Random Startup" of 3D and 4D reconstructions.
• 4D refinement procedures for high resolution results using IMAGIC-4D and/or Frealign.
• Fitting and refining atomic coordinates in high-resolution cryo-EM maps (~4? or better) using programs like REFMAC and Coot.
• Validation of the final results.