Just a final reminder. The deadline for submitting abstracts (posters
and talks) has been extended to January 12 (this Saturday). Students
are strongly encouraged to submit abstracts and will be considered
for the Etter Student Lecturer Award if invited to speak. There is
still room in the schedule for new contributions.
Submit your abstract online at this link: www.amercrystalassn.org/
AbsSubmit/
Microcrystallography Session ACA 2008, Knoxville TN
(Session 13.14, Thursday June 5)
Organizers: Richard Gillilan, Ruslan Sanishvili
Frontiers of structural biology are continuously expanding. Membrane
proteins, hetero-molecular assemblies, multi-domain proteins, and
many other important biological systems only produce microcrystals.
Increasingly, synchrotron beamlines are evolving to meet the
challenges of obtaining good diffraction data from samples of ever
decreasing size. While x-ray optics, background scattering reduction,
beam stability, and mechanical design innovations continue to
improve, this session will focus on supporting technologies, data
collection strategies, and important biophysical questions
surrounding the occurrence of microcrystals. What causes crystals to
be small? Within larger crystals, how much does diffraction quality
vary from spot to spot and how can x-ray microbeam be effectively
used to collect the best data? How can we avoid or mitigate radiation
damage as a consequence of higher flux densities used with smaller
diffracting volumes? The session will also touch upon recent advances
in microcrystal recognition, manipulation, and harvesting, especially
within the context of high-throughput screening.
