Intended audience and purpose of the course

Read the announcement here.

The course is intended primarily for Master’s and PhD students in the molecular and solid state sciences, particularly from across Europe, but applicants from other regions will be considered. The goal is that the participants gain hands-on experience plus a theoretical background in the art and science of routine crystal and molecular structure determination of small molecules by single-crystal X-ray crystallography, as well as in the interpretation and presentation of results. The course will consist of lectures, computer exercises and practical work.

Elementary knowledge of general-purpose, first-year university-level chemistry and mathematical concepts is helpful. No specialized knowledge of crystallography is required, but some prior experience is useful. The course language is English and participants must be sufficiently proficient in English to be able to understand the lectures and participate in discussions without difficulty.

The course is not suitable for persons interested specifically in powder diffraction techniques or macromolecular crystallography.

Bring your own crystals

The unique aspect of the School is that participants get to collect data and determine the structure of one of their own compounds that they are currently interested in and that they have not worked on before. Participants prepare and send their own crystals of one compound several weeks before before the School, so that the crystal quality and suitability of the problem may be assessed. At the end of the School, participants give a ten minute presentation of the results of their analysis.

ECTS credit for course

The University of Zürich offers 3 ECTS points, equivalent to 90 contact hours, for the course to successful students. Receiving credit requires

• attendance during the full duration of the School.
• passing a two-hour written examination on the final morning of the School and a positive assessment of the practical course work by the directors of the School.

Acceptance of the credit points by the student's home university must be negotiated by the students themselves on the basis of the detailed School programme, the result of their examination and the course assessment by the School directors.

The Workshop is addressed to students, postdocs and young researchers, who are engaged in structural studies of macromolecules. The aim is to familiarize the participants with modern methods of biocrystallography as applied to structural studies of proteins and their complexes, including bioinformatics approaches.
The Workshop will consist of hands-on practical sessions supported by lectures. All students are encourage to bring their own protein or diffraction data. Additionally, a poster session will be held during the workshop, and the participants are encourage to present their own research projects.
The topics will include:

• * bioinformatics approaches prior to crystallographic studies
• * high-throughput protein expression, purification and crystallization
• * efficient X-ray diffraction data collection and processing
• * phasing and structure determination
• * model refinement and validation