Crystallography News British Crystallographic Association Issue No. 112 March 2010 ISSN 1467-2790 Warwick April 2010 p6 BCA AGM 2009 Minutes p12 ECM26 p27 Dr Andrew Booth (1918-2009) p31 The Fankuchen Award p33 Small Molecule & Protein Ready & Protein SuperNova™ The Fastest, Most Intense Dual Wavelength X-ray System Automatic wavelength switching between Mo and Cu X-ray micro-sources 50W X-ray sources provide up to 3x more intensity than a 5kW rotating anode Fastest, highest performance CCD. Large area 135mm Atlas™ or highest sensitivity Eos™ – 330 (e-/X-ray Mo) gain Full 4-circle kappa goniometer AutoChem™, automatic structure solution and refinement software Extremely compact and very low maintenance driving X-ray innovation www.oxford-diffraction.com [email protected] Super Nova ad 1.4.09 - BCA.indd 1 3/4/09 15:38:04 Bruker AXS with DAVINCI. DESIGN The new D8 ADVANCE Designed for the next era in X-ray diffraction DAVINCI.MODE: Real-time component recognition and configuration DAVINCI.SNAP-LOCK: Alignment-free optics change without tools DIFFRAC.DAVINCI: The virtual diffractometer TWIN/TWIN SETUP: Push-button switch between Bragg-Brentano and parallel-beam geometries TWIST-TUBE: Fast and easy switching from line to point focus XRD Order Number DOC-P88-EXS071 © 2009 Bruker AXS GmbH. Printed in Germany. in Germany. AXS GmbH. Printed © 2009 Order Number DOC-P88-EXS071 Bruker think forward Crystallography News March 2010 Contents From the Editor . 2 Council Members . 3 BCA Administrative Office, From the President. 4 David Massey Northern Networking Events Ltd. Puzzle Corner and Corporate Members . 5 Glenfinnan Suite, Braeview House 9/11 Braeview Place East Kilbride G74 3XH BCA AGM 2010. 6 Tel: +44 (0)1355 244 966 Fax: +44 (0)1355 249 959 e-mail: [email protected] BCA AGM 2009 Minutes. 12 CRYSTALLOGRAPHY NEWS is published quarterly (March, June, News from the Groups. 16 September and December) by the British Crystallographic Association, and printed by William Anderson and Sons Ltd, Glasgow. Text should preferably be sent electronically as ECM26. 27 MSword documents (any version - .doc, .rtf or .txt files) or else on a PC disk. Diagrams and figures are most welcome, but please send them separately from text as .jpg, .gif, .tif, or Books . 30 .bmp files. Items may include technical articles, news about people (e.g. awards, honours, retirements etc.), reports on past meetings of interest to Dr Andrew Booth (1918-2009). 31 crystallographers, notices of future meetings, historical reminiscences, letters to the editor, book, hardware or software reviews. Please ensure that items for inclusion in the June 2010 CCDC . 32 issue are sent to the Editor to arrive before 25th April 2010. Carl Schwalbe The Fankuchen Award. 33 School of Life & Health Sciences Aston University Aston Triangle Birmingham B4 7ET Tel: 0121 204 4009 Meetings of Interest. 35 e-mail: [email protected] The British Crystallographic Association is a Registered Charity (#284718) As required by the DATA PROTECTION ACT, the BCA is notifying members that we store your contact information on a computer This month’s cover: database to simplify our administration. These details are not divulged to any others without your permission. You may inspect your entry during the Annual Meeting, or CCP4 photo-montage otherwise by application to the BCA Administrative Office. We will be happy to (Stuart Eyres and Laura amend entries at any time. Roe); artistic crystals Designed & printed by Wm. Anderson & Sons Ltd. 34 Loanbank Quadrant, Glasgow. Tel: 0141 440 2881 (Keith Waters) e-mail: [email protected] Crystallography News March 2010 1 From the Editor THIS issue highlights and has written entertainingly on this subject. I thought I some important qualities had inadvertently carried out a readership survey with my of crystallographers and column in the December issue. Describing Linus Pauling’s crystallography. Our main Nobel Prize for Chemistry, I had originally written that it was cover picture and the for “work on structure and bonding in small molecules, meeting report edited by from which he derived models for protein structure and Kate Brown celebrate the preliminary attempts on DNA”. To shorten the excessively 30th anniversary of CCP4. By long draft article, with one over-hasty swipe of the mouse I encouraging the dissemination reduced it to “work on DNA”. When, too late to change it, I of best practice and the free saw the result in cold print, I expected a blizzard of e-mails availability of software the cooperative spirit shared asking if I had ever read The Double Helix. However, none by almost all crystallographers and embodied in CCP4 came. I have derived three alternative possible conclusions. has accelerated the progress of macromolecular (1) Nobody reads this column. (2) Readers spotted the crystallography. Our knowledge of molecular biology mistake but did not wish to hurt the Editor’s feelings. (3) and our fight against disease have both benefited. Alert Most worryingly, people believe everything I write. readers of our “Meetings of interest” column will notice another CCP4 activity: the next BCA/CCP4 Summer This issue also features a report by John Helliwell School, to be held in Oxford from 5th - 10th September on Darmstadt, the venue for this year’s European 2010. Crystallographic Meeting. While Darmstadt may lack the instant touristic appeal of Istanbul, Madrid or Warwick, As we look forward to this spring, the title “Data Matters” of John reports that Darmstadt is well worth a visit for its this year’s BCA meeting reminds us of our reliance on data: blend of high-tech modernity and antique charm. British diffraction data as the basis for structure determination, crystallographers should not be put off by the literal now being supported by computational data, and structural translation of the German name, “Intestine City”. In fact the data held in the databases as the raw material for origin of the name is unknown. Since 1997 the city has comparative studies. This meeting has relevance for every promoted itself as “Science City Darmstadt”. crystallographer. A major justification for this name is the presence of the Crystallography has its artistic side, too. I am grateful to Society for Heavy Ion Research, where element 110 was David Watkin for sending our other cover picture (taken made and called darmstadtium. The conference centre by Keith Waters) showing part of one of the entries for where ECM-26 will take place also bears this name. Even the 2009 Turner Prize, in which an entire flat was covered better from our point of view, they also made element 111 in CuSO4 crystals. (Relying on the subscript-setting skills and called it roentgenium. Finally, I have to declare a personal of our printers, I am using the formula, thereby avoiding interest. My grandfather and near namesake Carl Gustav the tricky decision whether to write “sulphate” or “sulfate”.) Schwalbe founded the Institute of Cellulose Chemistry at the Some years ago the Royal Society of Chemistry began to Technical University there. More recently, when I was a post- accept the latter spelling; but with feelings running high over doc in Germany in the early 1970’s, the German Computing the Kraft takeover of Cadbury, I would not want to impose Centre in Darmstadt was the place that could rescue us by an American spelling on Crystallography News unilaterally. running calculations that were too hefty for our local facility. Do readers know of any previous examples in C.N.? One of the privileges of being the editor of Crystallography Sometimes an experiment is carried out by accident. News is that I receive newsletters from our sister A famous incident occurred in 1992 when a container crystallographic societies. In the November 2009 issue from carrying a mixed load of plastic bath toys including ducks, the German Society for Crystallography I found an article, turtles, beavers and frogs was washed overboard into the “Customs Absurdistan: with Crystals to America” by Peter eastbound section of the North Pacific Subpolar Gyre. The Luger which should dispel the idea that Germans lack a toys proved to be excellent markers for ocean currents, sense of humour (well, German crystallographers anyway; some washing ashore on nearby beaches on every circuit German customs officers are a different matter, but do of the Gyre. A few escaped the northernmost part of the customs officers anywhere have a sense of humour?). I Gyre, got frozen into Arctic ice, and traveled eastward am grateful to Peter and to Prof. Dirk Meyer, the editor, with the slow rotation of the polar ice cap; a plastic frog for permission to republish an English translation, which even washed up on a Scottish beach in 2003. Dr. Curtis appears on page 34 in this issue. Ebbesmeyer devoted much of his scientific career to the tracking of ocean currents from the motion of flotsam Carl Schwalbe 2 Crystallography News March 2010 EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS Education Coordinator Dr Michael R. Probert BCA Council 2009 Department of Chemistry Durham University Science Site, South Road COUNCIL MEMBERS GROUP REPRESENTATIVES DURHAM DH1 3LE Tel: 0191 334 2004 President (2012) Biological Structures [email protected] Prof. Elspeth F. Garman Dr Darren Thompson Department of Department of Editor Biochemistry Biochemistry “Crystallography News” South Parks Road University of Sussex Prof Carl H. Schwalbe OXFORD OX1 3QU BRIGHTON BN1 9QG School of Life & Health Sciences [email protected] Tel: 01273 876631 Aston University [email protected] BIRMINGHAM B4 7ET Vice President (2010) Tel: 0121 204 4009 Prof. Alexander J. Blake Chemical Crystallography [email protected] School of Chemistry, Dr Jonathan Charmant University of Nottingham School of Chemistry, Webmaster University Park University of Bristol, Dr Richard Cooper NOTTINGHAM NG7 2RD BRISTOL BS8 1TS Inhibox Ltd.