The 2010 American Crystallographic Association (ACA) meeting in Chicago has been able to bring together the co-recipients of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry namely Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath.
The ACA reports that Venkatraman Ramakrishnan will be giving a plenary lecture on Saturday (7/24/2010) and Thomas Steitz will be giving a plenary lecture on Wednesday (7/28/2010). Ada Yonath will be speaking Wednesday morning on Macromolecules, Complexes & Assemblies.
Early registration ends May 31st.
I attended the Mid-Atlantic Graduate Student Symposium (MAGSS) in Medicinal Chemistry this week.
My goal was to see how structures from the Protein Data Bank (PDB) are used by the non-crystallographic community.
I had a brief discussion with a colleague who was doing a number of modeling experiments. She was, essentially, modeling how the protein would move over the course of 35 nanoseconds.
I asked her how she determines which model to use from the PDB. The two criteria were:
1) the PDB entry had been used in other publications
2) the entry had the highest resolution
The most useful piece of information in deciding how to determine the proper position of the coordinates is the electron density map. However, I believe there is currently no resource that displays the final electron density map generated by the crystallographer.
We are currently making a huge effort to generate and store the coordinates of proteins, but are we doing enough to make them useful?
What criteria should the modeling community be using to judge the quality of coordinates from the PDB?
I have been unable to find out whether photography of presentations will be banned at the 2009 American Crystallography Association conference. I am doubtful there will be any information on the issue, but felt it was important to bring up nevertheless.
I have never felt comfortable when someone in the back of the room photographs each slide of a presentation. I also have not had the guts to ask them to stop.
A conference that promotes speakers to share new ideas and information is exciting. However, if the speakers are worried about being scooped then they will hold back and simply regurgitate their most recent papers.
The same reasoning applies during the poster sessions. I do see some people asking permission to take photos of posters. I have also seen thieves attendees taking pictures while the presentations were going on with the owner of the poster not present. Plan on your poster being photographed.
I was just asked to speak at the 2009 American Crystallography Association meeting this year. I will be presenting during the Educational Outreach in Crystallography session at 9:30 am. This was a last minute switch, as the original speaker was unable to attend, so I may not be listed in the conference information/flyer/brochure/pamphlet.
If you will be attending the conference, please stop by and say ‘hi’! I would love to be able to put faces to names. Finally, here are a couple tips I have picked up over the years from attending ACA (or any conference really):
Make a Plan: Presentations are usually given simultaneously, so take some time to figure out which ones you want to attend the next day. You would think this would be obvious, but I can’t tell you how many people I see trying to figure which talk they want to see next.
Take some Snacks: I usually end up waiting on others when lunch or dinner time rolls around. I have found that having a granola bar on hand can be a life saver.
Call your own Room: As soon as you get your room key, ask the front desk for the phone number to your room. Use your cell phone to call your room. You will then have your room phone number in your call log to give to others if the need arises.
Get to Know Someone New: Reach out, ask questions, be helpful, be yourself.
If you have any more conference tips, feel free to leave a comment.