The 2010 Spring Meeting will be held at the University of Warwick between 12^th and 15^th April 2010 and the theme is "Data Matters". Registration is now open online.

Please note that there is no single accommodation available for the night of Monday 12th. There are a few double rooms available. Please call the admin office 01355 244 966 for availability.

The broad ranging theme encompasses every aspect of crystallographic study, whilst promoting an interdisciplinary feel for the conference.  read more »

On 16-18th July 2010 there will be a meeting to celebrate 50 years of the British Biophysical Society at Robinson College, University of Cambridge

Registration: http://biophysics2010.org/
Enquiries: ghg24@cam.ac.uk

Plenary Speakers:
Venki Ramakrishnan (LMB, Cambridge)
Dorothee Kern (Brandeis)
Hagan Bayley (Oxford)
Stefan Hell (MPI, Göttingen)

please see the pdf file below for further information

Elections to the Committee of the Chemical Crystallography Group (CCG) of the British Crystallographic Association will be held at the CCG Annual General Meeting in Warwick, 14 April 2010. Nominations are requested for the following posts:  read more »

Lisa Jardine reflects on the valuable example of the Nobel Prize-winning crystallographer Dorothy Hodgkin, who bridged the so-called divide between the arts and the sciences.  Listen on the BBC iPlayer.

It is with great pleasure that I write to let you know of the result of the nominations made for Honorary Membership of the BCA in 2010. We have three new Honorary Life Members:

Bill Clegg, University of Newcastle
David Taylor, Consultant
Venki Ramakrishnan, MRC-LMB, Cambridge.

Congratulations to all three of them!

If you are a member of the BCA you should be
receiving the IUCr Newsletter every quarter. If you are not, you can
update your details at http://www.iucr.org/news/newsletter/request. The
IUCr does not use the list for any other purpose, nor do they sell the
information. The Editors of the IUCr Newsletter want to reduce the number of copies
that are not reaching subscribers because of outdated or otherwise
incorrect postal addresses.  read more »

XRD Meeting - "Between the Sheets" - 13th May 2010 , British Geological Survey (BGS), Keyworth, Nottingham.

 read more »

A one-day symposium is to be held to mark the retirement of Bill Clegg (though not from research!) and focusing on major aspects of his research career to date: synchrotron crystallography and structural alkali-metal chemistry, including both historical and current perspectives.

Lunch will be provided. There is no fee for attendance. To assist with catering plans, please register if you plan to come, by 15 March: contact Isobel Lamb on 0191 222 7102 or isobel.lamb@ncl.ac.uk  read more »

First of all, apologies if you have seen this request by another route, but it is important that we contact anyone who might have information.

Lachlan Cranswick, who is well known to many members of the BCA, has been missing since he left work at Chalk River, Ontario, Canada, at 4:30pm on Monday 18 January 2010. If you have had any contact with Lachlan since then, or have any information about his whereabouts, please let the police know. The contact regarding the search is  read more »

Dear BCA Member
I am delighted to announce that registration is now open for the BCA
Spring Meeting 13 - 15 April 2010 'Data Matters' at Warwick University.
Register now on-line at: http://www.crystallography-meetings.org.uk/spring10.php or download the pdf form.  read more »

The BCA Summer School is a combined taught and practical course intended primarily for students and researchers new to crystallography. It is held in the University of Oxford's Biochemistry Department and St. Edmund Hall from 5th - 10th September 2010. Its aim is to provide comprehensive training in the theory and practise of crystallography, and to promote the exchange of experience and best practise within the British crystallographic community.  read more »

The CSD’s 500,000^th structure is the anti-convulsant drug Lamotrigine, published in Acta Crystallographica, C65, o460-o464, 2009, by Balasubramanian Sridhar and Krishnan Ravikumar of the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology in Hyderabad. The CSD reference code for the structure is EFEMUX01.  read more »

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has gone to three crystallographers, Venki Ramakrishnan, Ada Yonath and Tom Steitz, for their work on the structure of the ribosome.
This is a wonderful achievement for them and on behalf of the BCA, I am sure all Members will join me in sending them hearty congratulations.

http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=61719&CultureCode=en

Dr David Watkin, an Honorary Member of the BCA, has been awarded the 2010 Fankuchen Award by the American Crystallographic Association. The award recognizes contributions to crystallographic research by one who is known to be an effective teacher of crystallography.  read more »

We are delighted to announce that the ECA has voted to award the twenty-eighth European Crystallography Meeting (ECM28) to the UK.

ECM28 will be held at the University of Warwick from 25-29 August 2013.

http://www.dur.ac.uk/john.evans/webpages/pcg_rietveld_school_2010.htm

Gift Aid doesn't cost you anything, it's simple to do, and, most importantly, the benefits go straight into BCA bursaries.

When you join the BCA you have an opportunity to fill out a Gift Aid Declaration which allows the BCA to claim 28p for HMRC for every £1 of your membership payments of donations.  read more »

I feel deeply honoured to have been elected at the Loughborough BCA AGM to be the new President of the BCA: the first President of the Association in 1982 was Professor (later Lord) David C. Phillips, who took me on at LMB Oxford as a card carrying experimental nuclear physicist in 1987, with a view to transmuting me into a macromolecular crystallographer! However, I also find it a daunting prospect to succeed Paul Raithby. Beneath Paul's unfailingly jovial demeanour there is efficiency and steely determination to do the best for the BCA and the profession of crystallography. Although Paul has made his name as a very creative small molecule crystallographer, he has a sympathetic understanding of other areas of crystallography. Since I started as a physicist and am now in a Biochemistry Department, I hope I can follow his example in this respect.   read more »

Professor Elspeth Garman was elected as the President of the British Crystallographic Association at its AGM on 22nd April 2009. She takes over from Paul Raithby who retires after three years in the post.

A full list of council members is available here. There are three new ordinary members of council: David Beveridge, Andrés Goeta and Alex Griffin. Anne Kavanagh is the new Industrial Group representative and Richard Cooper has taken over as website editor.

I am delighted to report that after the consideration of several very strong nominations, the BCA Officers have recommended the election of two new Honorary Members of the BCA, Frank Allen and David Watkin, in recognition of their outstanding services to BCA and crystallography. They will receive their letters of election at the Loughborough Meeting.