BCA 2005 SPRING MEETING.

An overview by the Programme Chair

Next year’s meeting will take place at Loughborough University from Tuesday 12^th to Thursday 14^th April. As in recent years, the meeting will run from 11.00 on the Tuesday to the Thursday afternoon. As this is not the week immediately before Easter, and recent meetings have generated internal pressure to increase the time available for both sessions and informal contacts, there is a possibility we may run later run a little later on the Thursday than in recent years (what do you think? – let me know!). Timings will be similar to previous years with sessions being made up generally of one or more 1.5 hour slots.

The review theme and plenary sessions.

The overall theme to be addressed in four linked plenary talks is “In situ and non-ambient crystallography”, which will include discussion of following structures under change. This is a very hot area at present and promises some really neat new ideas and results. Details remain to be fully confirmed, but the session will include a talk from Phil Coppens, State University of New York at Buffalo, entitled “X,Y,Z and Time: Introducing the time dimension in crystallographic research”, and one on Process control in the cement industry using both X-ray fluorescence and X-ray diffraction. The two remaining plenaries are still under discussion, ideas being followed up including aspects of phase transitions, pressure induced chemical change, photochemistry, and the trapping of intermediates in macromolecular crystallography. With this particular review theme, it seems natural to follow the plenary talks with a plenary session in which manufacturers of equipment for non-ambient experiments will be offered a platform to present the kit they have available.

Scientific sessions.

Much of the rest of the meeting will be built up of parallel sessions, of which the following have so far been agreed.

• In situ diffraction. This session will probably take place on the Wednesday, and will likely include processing of inorganic materials and opportunities for non-ambient and in situ crystallographic work at central facilities including DIAMOND.

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• On the Thursday, Pam Thomas will lead a session on phase transitions. Following on from the successful teaching session at UMIST on using International Tables, this session will start with an introductory teaching session (do you really know what a phase transition is? How can you characterise one? Is there really such a thing as a second order phase transition?).

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• Photocrystallography. This session will be chaired by Paul Raithby (Bath).

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• Modern techniques for crystal structure refinement. This session should be of interest to all crystallographers, as many of us – biologists, physicists, chemists, geologists – have similar problems and can learn from how others get round them. Bill Hunter and Simon Parsons will chair this session.

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• Sessions are introduced for the X-ray fluorescence community, who will run a parallel session throughout the meeting that is likely to be of interest to many of us. It will be organised jointly by BCA Treasurer Dave Taylor and David Beveridge of Ilford Ltd. Sessions will include presentations on state of the art equipment and consumables, working with liquid and awkward samples (aren’t all liquids difficult samples?….), standards and calibration, and light element analysis.

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• Other sessions currently being put together address non-ambient aspects of pharmaceuticals, crystallography in industry, membrane proteins, high throughput methodologies in macromolecular crystallography and in situ drug discovery. More on these later.

Workshops.

By popular request (yes, really!) we will continue to include a number of workshop sessions in the programme. For 2005, there will be, in addition to the workshop aspect of the Phase Transition session, a Crystals workshop organised by David Watkin and Richard Cooper from Oxford, and industrial crystallography and WinGX workshops. Other possible workshop sessions are still under discussion. We are also examining the possibility of a one day ‘satellite’ white beam workshop on the Monday preceding the meeting.

We are also examining the possibility of building on last year’s experience of holding one or two facility user meetings just before or after the main meeting.

Offer a talk.

Two final points.

Although the Young Crystallographers session at UMIST was thought to be a great success, we want this year to improve integration! I heard many of the Young Crystallographers’ talks and felt strongly that it was a great pity they weren’t seen and heard by a wider audience. So next year, we are purposely not filling all the ‘slots’ in the scientific sessions with invited speakers. Rather, we are calling for offers of talks from everyone in the community, a procedure I have seen work very well in other meetings. Details of how to bid for of these slots through submitting an abstract will be publicised later when the overall programme is finalised. But do begin to think now about either submitting an abstract for an oral presentation, or encourage your students and postdocs to do so. There will of course be poster sessions as well, and we are working to improve the integration of the posters with the rest of the meeting.

And in addition, check your diary now and make sure that you have “BCA meeting” blanking out everything else for 12-14 April 2005. It promises to be an excellent and exciting three days. If you have any queries or suggestions about the programme – perhaps there’s a really exciting development that we haven’t included? – please get in touch with me. If you have suggestions concerning the individual sessions, please also contact either me or the session organiser.

John Finney
[email protected]