BCA Spring 1997

At the BCA Spring meeting at the U. of Leeds, the Biological Structures Group held sessions on Structure and Mechanism of Enzymes, Protein/Nucleic Acid Interactions and Hot Structures. The Chemical Crystallography Group series of talks on Area Detectors in Chemical Crystallography: Experiences, Opportunity and Challenge began with a plenary lecture by J. Helliwell and covered topics ranging from "Systematic Data Errors" (N. Alcock) and "Badly Defracted Crystals" (H. Powell) to "Coping with the Flood (of CSD entries)" (J. Davies), "Comparing Area and Single Point Detectors" (M. Legge) and "The Use of the Whole Diffraction Patterns" (M. Hursthorne). The Industrial Groups organized sessions on combining other analytical techniques with traditional X-ray diffraction including neutron diffraction (P. Barnes), wide angle (T. Ryan) and small angle scattering (I. Hanley), Raman spectroscopy (H. Gleeson) and computer graphic modeling.

The Industrial Group Awards were presented to B. Belling in recognition of his contributions to diffraction at Harwell and to A. Bowen in recognition of his work in residual stress. Bowen died before receiving his award and the IG has renamed its plenary lecturers the Alun Bowen Industrial Lecture. P. Barnes delivered the inaugural lecture which was followed by a session on Process Production and Application that included presentations on cement production (R. Beilman), semi conductor based opto electronic devices (M. Helliwell), blades for aero-engines (C. Small) and polymorphism in pharmaceutical manufacture (C. Frampton).

BCA Newsletter, June 1997