The 2026 Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference will be held at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and features two parallel scientific sessions one focused on life sciences and the other on chemistry and materials scienc with shared keynote lectures bringing together the full community for interdisciplinary exchange.

• Opening Reception, September 15
• Parallel Scientific Sessions, September 16-18.
• Poster Session with Student Poster Contest, September 16th
• Conference Banquet, September 17th
• Tours of LCLS and SSRL, September 18th (advanced registration required)

To Register or learn more visit: https://cvent.me/Eaamay

A Pre-conference Workshop on Computational Tools for Structure-based Drug Design will be held on September 15th, with seperate registration.

On behalf of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr), it is with immense excitement and joy that we cordially extend our warmest invitation to you to join the IUCr for the Twenty-Seventh Congress and General Assembly, set to be held in the magnificent city of Calgary, located in the heart of Alberta, Canada from August 11th-18th, 2026.

Calgary, a city renowned for its breathtaking natural beauty and warm hospitality, has been chosen as the host for this remarkable occasion. Nestled amidst stunning landscapes and boasting a rich cultural heritage, this vibrant metropolis promises to provide an unforgettable experience for all attendees.

• advanced strategies for structure elucidation from powdered samples and disordered materials
• synergistic use of spectroscopic and diffraction data with computational modelling
• integration of machine learning for analysis and AI-assisted interpretation
• treating dynamic and heterogeneous systems using in situ and operando techniques
• linking atomic-scale insights to macroscopic material properties

The 11th European Crystallography School (ECS11) will be held in Stockholm,Sweden, June 28 - July 4, 2026. The school will offer international students and scientists a series of lectures and hands-on tutorials by leading experts in thefields of X-ray and electron crystallography, with a focus on organic, inorganic, and metal-organic crystal structures. Participants will have opportunities to interact with teachers, industry representatives, and fellow participants through poster sessions,industry talks, discussion sessions, activities, and excursions.

Topics:

• Single crystal X-ray diffraction
• Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD)
• 3D electron diffraction
• Synchrotron radiation
• Small-molecule crystallography

2025 Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference (PDC)

Hosted by Brookhaven National Laboratory
October 9–12, 2025

On behalf of the Conference Committee, we are delighted to invite you to 82nd annual Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference (PDC). This year’s conference will be held October 9–12, 2025 at Brookhaven National Laboratory, on New York’s beautiful Long Island.
 

The Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference is one of the longest-running scientific meetings in North America focused on the advancement of structural science through diffraction-based methods. Bridging both life sciences and materials sciences, the conference brings together researchers who utilize laboratory-based instruments, X-ray light sources, electron diffraction, and neutron scattering to explore the structure and dynamics of matter. It serves as a vibrant forum for sharing recent scientific breakthroughs, fostering interdisciplinary collaborations, and highlighting innovations across experimental and computational frontiers

This year’s program features a diverse and timely selection of breakout sessions, reflecting key areas of growth in the field. Topics include energy storage, emphasizing structural insights that enable next-generation energy technologies; AI and its applications in the development of emergent materials; novel materials with transformative properties; and the effects of extreme environments on structures, reveling details on dynamic processes and molecular motion that lead to biomolecular functions and a better understanding of complex soft materials.

Conference Web Page and Registration:  

https://www.bnl.gov/pittsburgh-diffraction-conference/index.php 

Important dates:

April 21, 2025               General registration opens
July 31, 2025                Deadline to submit an abstract for an oral/poster presentation
September 19, 2025      General registration closes

Pre-event workshops:

PDF 101: A Hands on Tutorial to Total Scattering Methods (organizers: Milinda Abeykoon, Daniel Olds)

Hands-on Workshop: Crystal Clear Insights: Mastering Protein Crystallization (organizers: Crissy Traver, Vivian Stojanoff)

Evening Events:

Brookhaven National Lab facility tour.
Friday, October 10, 2025
https://www.bnl.gov/pittsburgh-diffraction-conference/nsls2tour.php

Banquet Dinner
Danfords Hotel and Marina
25 E Broadway, Port Jefferson, NY 11777
Date: Friday, October 10, 2025, 7-9 p.m.

 

Awards Dinner
Charles B. Wang Center
100 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook, NY 11794
Date: Saturday, October 11, 2025, 7-9 p.m.

2025 Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference (PDC)

Hosted by Brookhaven National Laboratory
October 9â€"12, 2025

On behalf of the Conference Committee, we are delighted to invite you to 82nd annual Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference (PDC). This year’s conference will be held October 9â€"12, 2025 at Brookhaven National Laboratory, on New York’s beautiful Long Island.

The Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference is one of the longest-running scientific meetings in North America focused on the advancement of structural science through diffraction-based methods. Bridging both life sciences and materials sciences, the conference brings together researchers who utilize laboratory-based instruments, X-ray light sources, electron diffraction, and neutron scattering to explore the structure and dynamics of matter. It serves as a vibrant forum for sharing recent scientific breakthroughs, fostering interdisciplinary collaborations, and highlighting innovations across experimental and computational frontiers

This year’s program features a diverse and timely selection of breakout sessions, reflecting key areas of growth in the field. Topics include energy storage, emphasizing structural insights that enable next-generation energy technologies; AI and its applications in the development of emergent materials; novel materials with transformative properties; and the effects of extreme environments on structures, reveling details on dynamic processes and molecular motion that lead to biomolecular functions and a better understanding of complex soft materials.

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Conference Web Page and Registration:Â Â

https://www.bnl.gov/pittsburgh-diffraction-conference/index.phpÂ

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Important dates:

April 21, 2025Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â General registration opens
July 31, 2025Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Deadline to submit an abstract for an oral/poster presentation
September 19, 2025Â Â Â General registration closes

Pre-event workshops:

PDF 101: A Hands on Tutorial to Total Scattering Methods (organizers: Milinda Abeykoon, Daniel Olds)

Hands-on Workshop: Crystal Clear Insights: Mastering Protein Crystallization (organizers: Crissy Traver, Vivian Stojanoff)

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Evening Events:

Brookhaven National Lab facility tour.
Friday, October 10, 2025
https://www.bnl.gov/pittsburgh-diffraction-conference/nsls2tour.php

Banquet Dinner
Danfords Hotel and Marina
25 E Broadway, Port Jefferson, NY 11777
Date: Friday, October 10, 2025, 7-9 p.m.

Awards Dinner
Charles B. Wang Center
100 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook, NY 11794
Date: Saturday, October 11, 2025, 7-9 p.m.

 At the XXV Congress and General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography in Prague, it was decided that the 35th edition of the European Crystallographic Meeting would be held in Lviv, Ukraine, in 2025.

 Unfortunately, there is a war in Ukraine, and it is not reasonable to organize a great scientific event in Lviv in 2025. An alternative was thus elaborated where, thanks to a collaboration between the Ukrainian Crystallographic Committee and the Polish Crystallographic Association, the conference site will be Poznan, a city in neighbouring Poland.

• Protein expression and purification
• Biophysical characterisation of macromolecular complexes
• Introduction to electron microscopy
• X-ray crystallography, small angle X-ray scattering and serial crystallography using synchrotron radiation
• Application of nuclear magnetic resonance in structural biology
• Mass spectrometry in protein-protein interaction studies
• Single-molecule methods and super-resolution light microscopy
• AI-based structure prediction methods

The ORNL Neutron Sciences Directorate is organizing a workshop, Neutrons in Structural Biology â€" Challenges & Opportunities, to be held June 10-12, 2024 at the Sheraton Pentagon City Hotel, Arlington, VA. The goal of the workshop is to garner support for the construction of the macromolecular neutron diffraction beamline EWALD at ORNL’s Second Target Station. EWALD will be capable of performing biological neutron crystallography on radically smaller crystals to help meet neutron beamtime demand for challenging biological systems.

The workshop will highlight the biological scientific community’s need for access to a new generation of neutron scattering capabilities to address pressing challenges in biochemistry, structural biology, enzymology and drug design that cannot be solved with the current neutron scattering technology or other structural biology techniques such as X-ray crystallography, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, and cryo-EM.

The workshop will also introduce the Instrument Scientific Advisory Committee for the development of a macromolecular neutron diffractometer at ORNL’s Second Target Station. The beamline will deliver orders of magnitude gains in performance for biological research and expand accessibility to larger biological systems crucial for understanding biochemistry and advancing the design of future therapeutics.Â

In addition, the Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP)-enabled IMAGINE-X instrument, a capability recently funded by the Department of Energy’s Biopreparedness Research Virtual Environment (BRaVE) Initiative, will be presented at the workshop. IMAGINE-X, under construction at the High Flux Isotope Reactor, will dramatically enhance signal from hydrogen atoms, obviating the need for deuteration, and decreasing the crystal volume required for a successful experiment by one-to-two orders of magnitude. The successful development of the DNP capability and its implementation at the STS beamline will create a "quantum leap" in biological macromolecular neutron crystallography.

The workshop will be a forum for structural biology and biochemistry experts, early career researchers, and students to discuss scientific advances and collaboration opportunities. The workshop will include a 1-day satellite training workshop (June 10, 2024) to educate graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the application of neutron crystallography and small angle scattering in structural biology.

Graz University of Technology and Anton Paar will host the First International XRD excites: Non-Ambient XRD & Beyond symposium. The latest advances in the field of powder XRD will be discussed, and 60 years of non-ambient XRD at Anton Paar will be celebrated with a series of special talks and activities.

Why Attend?

Join the discussion of key themes, such as non-ambient XRD methods and applications, operando battery analysis using X-rays, total scattering and PDF analysis of disordered and amorphous materials, thin-film and surface diffraction/scattering of materials, and SAXS for nanostructured materials, with internationally recognized scientists and other participants from complementary fields. Present and share your own research and ideas with international participants from a broad range of backgrounds. Establish contacts, broaden your horizons and discuss the future of X-ray structure analysis methods. The symposium will consist of several themed sessions with keynote speakers, contributing talks and a poster session.

To encourage networking, several social events will complement the scientific sessions. Participants can join a guided walking tour of Graz’s old city center â€" a UNESCO heritage site. Graz is Austria’s second-largest city, home to three universities and a bustling center of culture and higher learning. In addition to an optional tour of Anton Paar headquarters, a conference dinner for all attendees will be hosted at “Sudhaus,” Anton Paar’s first-class restaurant and brewery located on the company premises. It serves local delicacies alongside a selection of craft beers.

Dear Colleagues

We (the board members of the Pittsburgh Diffraction Society) are pleased to announce the availability of travel awards to attend the 80^th Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference. The Conference will be held at the Society’s ancestral home, in Pittsburgh, PA, on October 15, 2023 â€" October 17, 2023.

The awards are aimed at students, postdoctoral fellows as well as (non-faculty) staff scientists. Applications from minorities underrepresented in the sciences are especially encouraged. Details can be found here as well as attached.

The conference program includes

·        A historic overview on the Pittsburgh Diffraction Society

·        Scientific Sessions covering the Latest Development at Light Sources, High-pressure Applications, Structure-based drug design, Synergy of Computation and Crystallography, Crystallography and Cryo-EM, Structure property relationships in Quantum and Layered Materials, and many more!

·        A Young Investigator Platform showcasing achievements of students and postdocs

·        Student posters are eligible for the Chung Soo Yoo Award, which carries a $400 cash prize, related to materials and biological research, respectively

·        Fun social activities and Vendor Shows!

·        A Phenix Workshop prior to the conference (Oct 14, 2023, limited availability!)

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For the entire program, the venue and more details, and to register, please visit the conference web page.

The flagship of the European Crystallographic Association (ECA) activities is the European Crystallographic Meeting (ECM), held every year, except when there is an IUCr Congress. The ECMs are the main meeting point for crystallographers in the ECA area to show their recent research. Microsymposia at ECMs are proposed and organized by ECA SIGs.

ECM 34 will be organized at the Padova Congress Centre on behalf of ECA and AIC. It will include all topics of interest to crystallography and it will be organized in synergy with EPIDC 18, which will follow ECM 34 in the same location.

The Young Crystallographers are a working group within the German Society for Crystallography (DGK). For 10 years, we meet regularly in autumn at different universities or the STOE facilities.

These meetings specifically aim to provide a platform for networking and scientific exchange for young scientists with an interest in crystallography, as well as to establish contacts with industry and research institutions.
We want to give young scientists the opportunity to gain early experience in scientific presentation in a relaxed atmosphere and without the stress of a larger conference.

For our grand anniversary, we are happy to meet at the DESY facilities! We are working hard to allow you deep insights as well as a great overview of the possibilities at this large-scale facility.

During the 3-day meeting, you willÂ

• present your own work as a poster (A0 portrait) and lightning talk (~5 min.)
• have the DESY campus tour
• participate in an experiment and get a hands-on experience at a beamline of your choice at PETRA III (see The Experiments)
• hear academic talks from senior scientists
• hear industry talks from our sponsors/partners

At the end of the meeting, you will also have the chance to join a tour of the European XFEL Campus. If you intend to participate, please indicate so during registration. Note that you will need to get to the XFEL facilities by public transport as it is a bit outside the main DESY campus.

The registration fee of 60 € includes the tours and experiments at DESY, coffee breaks as well as lunch and BBQ on Thursday.

Deadline for registration is 22.08.23.