The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP, Trieste, Italy), in cooperation with iThemba Labs - National Research Foundation (SA) Cape Town Campus, Stellenbosch, South Africa is organizing an Advanced School on Synchrotron Radiation Techniques and Nanotechnology: A Synergic Approach to Life Sciences and Medicine to be held in Cape Town, Stellenbosch, South Africa.Â

In the post-genomic era the emphasis has shifted from genes to proteins and to the understanding of their structure and biological function. The rapid development of nano-sciences has made available a new range of tools and approaches that have revolutionized biological and medical research, by allowing scientist to manipulate nano-particles and macromolecular objects and to monitor the behaviour of single molecules. Not only is this having a great impact on basic biological research, but its applications have become a driving and innovative force in the modern economic and industrial framework, particularly for health and biotechnology.

Topics will include:

• Macromolecular crystallography,
• Single particle electron microscopy,
• Small angle X-ray scattering,
• Computational biology,
• Nano-biophysics,
• High resolution atomic force microscopy,
• Nano-mechanics and tissue engineering.Â

The aim of the school is to introduce young researchers to the latest developments in the field of structural biology, nano-biophysics and nano-medicine and to their revolutionary impact on biotechnology, pharmacology and early diagnostics of widespread diseases. Potential applications range from low-cost diagnostic tools and therapeutics for neglected diseases (such as malaria, Dengue, AIDS) to the development of local biotechnology industry. A few practical sessions will provide the students with some hands-on experience in some of the subjects covered by the lectures.Â

School aim:

The aim of this school will be to cover all aspects of the structure solution process in macromolecular crystallography, starting from data processing, through phasing and refinement to structure completion and analysis.
The workshop will cover many popular programs used for data processing and structure determination, with the developers available to help throughout the meeting. Programs covered will include: Mosflm, Scala, XDS, Refmac, ARP/wARP, Phaser, AutoSharp, Coot, SHELXC/D/E, BALBES, MrBUMP, Crank, Buccaneer and many more.

Intended audience :

The course is intended mainly for graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and young scientists in the area of structural biology. Candidates working in South American countries will be prioritized, but applications are welcome from all around the globe. The school is not meant as an introductory level course to protein crystallography. It is designed more for applicants with reasonable expertise in crystallography and some experience with the CCP4 suite. The purpose of the school is to address specific problems that the applicants face while processing diffraction data and while solving and refining novel structures. Applicants with collected data or partially processed data will be given strong consideration, particularly if they are having trouble with image processing, phasing or refinement. However, these are not mandatory requirements and all applications will be considered.
Several of the leading PX software developers from around the world will present lectures and tutorials on their software, and will also be available to help with problems during hands-on sessions throughout the workshop.

Organizers

• Alejandro Buschiazzo, PhD (Unit of Protein Crystallography, IPasteur Montevideo, Uruguay)
• Ronan Keegan, PhD (Computational Science & Engineering Dept â€" CCP4 Group, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, United Kingdom)

Supported by:  Centro de Biologia Estructural del Mercosur (CeBEM, Mercosur), Collaborative Computational Project Nº4 (CCP4, UK), Science and Technology Facilities Council (UK), Reseau International des Instituts Pasteur (RIIP), International Union of Crystallography (IUCr), and Institut Pasteur de Montevideo.

Invitation

On behalf of the organizing committee of the International Conference on Structural Genomics 2013 â€" Structural Life Science â€" (ICSG2013-SLS), I cordially welcome you to the conference, to be held in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan, July 29th â€" August 1st, 2013. ICSG2013-SLS is intended to provide an overview for the most recent developments in Structural Genomics and its impact on research in biology, medicine and disease, and to foster international collaboration among researchers regardless of the borders.Â

The scientific topics covered in ICSG2013-SLS include wider life science research fields with particular attentions to drug discovery (small molecules and biopharmaceuticals), biotechnology and industrial issues while keeping its strength in the highthroughput technologies and integration of hybrid methods. These technologies are now leading to the new field of “Structural Life Science”.Â

ICSG2-13-SLS is partially supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas; “Structural Cell Biology”, “Intrinsically Disordered Protein” and “Transient Macromolecular Complexes”, from Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).Â

In order to widen the opportunity to young and enthusiastic fellows to study more, we organize several satellite workshops before the ICSG2013- SLS. The topics will include “Small molecule screening”, “Automation of X-ray Structure Determination”, “Cell-free Protein Production”, “ Eukaryote expression”, “Automated NMR methods”, “Interaction analyses" and "Bioinformatics”. We hope you also find the satellite workshops are informative and productive.Â

The conference will be held in Keio Plaza Hotel Sapporo, in walking distance to Hokkaido University main campus and Sapporo station. Also the summer in Sapporo is the best season to stay and enjoy the cool summer night of Japan.Â

I am looking forward to welcoming you to Sapporo in the summer of 2013.
Sincerely yours,
Katsumi Maenaka, Ph.D.
Chair, International Conference on Structural Genomics 2013 -Structural Life Science- (ICSG2013-SLS)
Laboratory of Biomolecular Science and Center for Research and Education on Drug Discovery, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hokkaido University, Japan

The School and Workshop aim to celebrate the 100 years of X-Ray Diffraction and to provide a forum for exchange of knowledge in the fields of crystallography in order to get the latest developments in structure determination of biological and non-biological molecules. During this occasion, the history and developments of Crystallography in Egypt and North Africa will be reviewed. Single crystal and powder techniques will be considered using conventional Sealed Tube and non-conventional Synchrotron Radiation. Advanced applications of different techniques such as Small Angle Scattering as well as Raman and IR spectroscopy in characterizations of materials will be also covered. Hand-on computer training on the latest developed programs in the field will be also available.

The sixth BioCrys course will be focused on Macromolecular Crystallography, by developing the fundamental concepts of Crystallography and illustrate these by tutorial and practical sessions.
 This is particularly important due to the rapid development of the field and also due to the fact that many young researchers do not receive a formal education in Crystallography. Additionally, with the introduction of high-throughput methods, the need to understand and grasp the theory behind modern methods will certainly be critical to overcome the difficult problems that will arise and will not be solved by the automated procedures.
Topics of the course will run from fundamentals such as symmetry, point groups and crystal systems, basic diffraction physics, reciprocal space and the Ewalds sphere, radiation damage, data processing, symmetry in the diffraction pattern, structure factors, Patterson function to modern methodologies including molecular replacement, SAD, MAD, MIR and maximum likelihood phasing, direct methods, density modification, refinement, model building, twinning and structure validation. Main challenges on sample preparation and crystallization of proteins will also be covered.
The course will be organized with lectures in the mornings and interactive practicals and tutorials in the afternoons. Evening lectures will address two main important topics within Structural Biology, one covering studies of membrane proteins and the other the beginning of use of free electron lasers in macromolecular Crystallography.
Participants will be limited to 36, aimed primarily at people at the beginning of their crystallographic research activity as PhD students or others. Selected applicants are invited to present a poster during the course.

Dear Participants of BSR-2013,
we would like to thank you very much for your attendance and for the great atmosphere at the recent BSR-2013 conference in Hamburg. The conference was an important milestone in the developments of synchrotron radiation and free electron laser applications in biology.
We hope that all of you enjoyed the exciting program covering the most important present and further directions, and the scientific sessions containing excellent talks and lively discussions.
One of the highlights was a visit to the life science facilities at the DESY campus, and we received very positive comments about this visit and about the conference overall.
We have distributed a questionnaire about the conference which we encourage you to answer. Your answers will help us and future organisers of the BSR conferences to further improve and optimise the running of this conference series.
The conference had a great spirit due to the synergy between the speakers, chairs and participants, and also thanks to the excellent work of the local team from EMBL Hamburg and the Conference Office team from EMBL Heidelberg. Both teams were already sent our sincere thanks.
BSR-2013 was a great success and we look forward to the next conference in three years in Stanford.
With many thanks and very best regards
Matthias, Dmitri

International Workshop on New Developments of Methods and Software for Protein Crystallography

This workshop is intended to reflect and summarize some important advances of protein crystallography in methodology and automation procedures, such as new ideas and implementations for protein crystallography with emphases on low-resolution phasing and futuristic methods for crystal, nano-crystal or non-crystal structure determination; Automatic, user-friendly pipeline developments; Future data acquisition and storage for structural biology, particularly at modern synchrotron sources. The workshop will also include topics in new methods in protein crystallizations, nano-liter robots, automatic data collection at third generation synchrotrons, new light sources, new detectors, new ideas and ways of diffraction data collection, processing and storage.

Scope of the School

Crystallography is a mature scientific discipline, which has contributed, in the recent past, to the development of drugs, to the understanding of the biological activity of proteins and nucleic acids, to the comprehension of the unique properties of crystals at the nanometer scale for diagnosis and drug-delivery and to shedding light on complex hierarchical organic-inorganic composites such as bone and enamel.
The purpose of the 2012 International Insubria Summer School is to explore the multiple aspects of crystallography: the world of crystallization, the more traditional and advanced experimental andcomputational techniques and other complementary methods, which will be specifically focussed to the applications on health- and bio-sciences.
A full intensive week will be organized under the guide of internationally recognized experts in the field.

Purpose of the Course

 X-ray crystallography is the pre-eminent technique for obtaining the 3D structures of macromolecules at the level of individual atoms. These structures are central to understanding the detailed mechanisms of biological processes and to discovering novel therapeutics using a structure-based approach. Great advances continue to be made in the methods for determining crystal structures, pushing the frontiers, allowing the pace of structural understanding to increase and making it possible to respond efficiently and rapidly to emerging threats. This course will help to equip the next generation of scientists with a deep understanding of the tools they need to solve challenging structural projects and an appreciation for what the future holds.

Brief Description:

The last decade has seen an exponential growth in the results obtained by macromolecular crystallography, both in terms of number of structures and their complexity. This growth is having a significant impact on molecular and cellular biology, as more and more macromolecular structures have been instrumental in elucidating biological functions.Â

The objective of this introductory workshop is to expose the participants to the methodologies used to solve macromolecular structures, using single crystal X-ray diffraction techniques. Structural biology is an interdisciplinary research area, requiring expertises from both the life sciences and the physical sciences: the school aims to bridge the gap between physics and biology by providing a comprehensive overview of the field, starting from the gene to obtain the atomic structure. A short overview of other structural biology techniques will also be presented. The educational program will be based both on lectures and practical sessions.Â

The school is part of a joint initiative between Elettra, IAEA and SESAME, the Middle East synchrotron radiation facility in Jordan.

Main Topics:

• Bioinformatics analysis to identify structural targets and optimise constructs design
• Molecular biology and cloning techniques
• Protein expression and purification
• Crystallisation
• Data collection & reduction
• Structure determination
• Model building, refinement and model validation
• Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS)
• An overview of other structural biology techniques

The fifth BioCrys course will be focused on Macromolecular Crystallography, by developing the fundamental concepts of Crystallography and illustrate these by tutorial and practical sessions.
This is particularly important due to the rapid development of the field and also due to the fact that many young researchers do not receive a formal education in Crystallography. Additionally, with the introduction of high-throughput methods, the need to understand and grasp the theory behind modern methods will certainly be critical to overcome the difficult problems that will arise and will not be solved by the automated procedures.
Topics of the course will run from fundamentals such as symmetry, point groups and crystal systems, basic diffraction physics, reciprocal space and the Ewalds sphere, radiation damage, data processing, symmetry in the diffraction pattern, structure factors, Patterson function to modern methodologies including molecular replacement, SAD, MAD, MIR and maximum likelihood phasing, direct methods, density modification, refinement, model building, twinning and structure validation.
The course will be organized with lectures in the mornings and interactive practicals and tutorials in the afternoons. Evening lectures on current topics will be presented by the invited speakers. Participants will be limited to 36, aimed primarly at people at the beginning of their crystallographic research activity as PhD students or others. Selected applicants are invited to present a poster during the course.

ISBC 2011 - Overview

The Laboratory of Crystallographic Studies (CSIC-UGR) organised the 3rd International School on Biological Crystallization under the auspices of the International Union of Crystallography through the Commission of Crystal Growth. The event took place in the Centre of the beautiful City of Granada, an ideal place to promote close scientific and social interactions between the attendees.
ISBC covered five days of lectures and practical demonstrations carried by 27 selected experts in the fields of crystallisation of biological macromolecules and biomineralisation.
The first day, Sunday, served as an introduction to the School and also provided the first lectures on the purification and preparation of protein solutions.
The second day, Monday, focused on explaining the fundamentals of crystallisation from solution to protein crystals; covering a wide range of topics from the physicochemical properties of solutions, through nucleation and light scattering techniques to finish with crystal growth methods and handling of protein crystals.
Tuesday was devoted to special hot topics that included talks on the crystallisation of large crystals, complexes and membrane proteins.
The fourth day of the School was dedicated to a 'Demonstration Fair', at which 22 specialists offered short (20-40 minutes) practical sessions periodically at scheduled times. Participants were able to choose what sessions they wanted to attend and in the order they wished, so that they selected their own learning programme "a la carte". The Demonstrations' Fair proved to be an excellent teaching tool as it provided students with plenty of opportunities to interact on a personal basis with the teachers and to watch closely how to perform crystallisation experiments.
Finally, the last day of the School focused on the subjects of biomineralisation and biomimetic materials.

Purpose of the Course

The objective of this meeting is to introduce students to the use of advanced techniques for the study of structures of macromolecular assemblies involving protein, DNA, RNA and polysaccharide. Such assemblies regulate spatial and temporal organisation in cells and organisms. The course will focus on the structures and dynamics of membrane channels and receptor systems, cell signalling, DNA replication, protein synthesis, motile systems and viruses. These systems mediate many of the processes that lead to human disease.

There will be discussion of multi-component complex assembly and disassembly, macromolecular systems that drive protein movement, adaptors and templates that lead to cellular co-localisation, allostery and conformational changes over time, and the macromolecular interactions that mediate these regulatory systems. The course will review the techniques used to study protein assemblies and their dynamics, including X-ray diffraction and scattering, electron cryo-electron microscopy, electro nanospray mass spectrometry, NMR, protein docking and molecular dynamics.

On behalf of the University-Industry Cooperative Research Committee (#169) of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), chaired by Professor Noriyoshi Sakabe, we cordially invite you to the 3rd International Symposium on Diffraction Structural Biology (ISDSB2010).   The symposium will be held from 25 to 28 May 2010 at University Paris-Sud, Orsay, near Paris: Auditorium Pierre Lehmann, LAL, Bldg 200.Â
Tuesday May 25: 2 PM opening and first session; 6.30 PM welcome reception at the nearby national synchrotron radiation facility SOLEIL (buses available).Â
Thursday 27: afternoon at Synchrotron SOLEIL. Commercial exhibition, poster session and visit of SOLEIL beamlines (buses available).Â
Proceedings papers: To be published in the Journal of Synchrotron Radiation. Speakers and all poster presenters are expected to submit manuscripts (4 pages JSR format), which will be submitted to referee.