AMERICAN CRYSTALLOGRAPHIC ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER Number 4 Winter 2004 ACA 2005 Transactions Symposium New Horizons in Structure Based Drug Discovery Table of Contents / President's Column Winter 2004 Table of Contents President's Column Presidentʼs Column ........................................................... 1-2 The fall ACA Council Guest Editoral: .................................................................2-3 meeting took place in early 2004 ACA Election Results ................................................ 4 November. At this time, News from Canada / Position Available .............................. 6 Council made a few deci- sions, based upon input ACA Committee Report / Web Watch ................................ 8 from the membership. First ACA 2004 Chicago .............................................9-29, 38-40 and foremost, many will Workshop Reports ...................................................... 9-12 be pleased to know that a Travel Award Winners / Commercial Exhibitors ...... 14-23 satisfactory venue for the McPherson Fankuchen Address ................................38-40 2006 summer meeting was News of Crystallographers ...........................................30-37 found. The meeting will be Awards: Janssen/Aminoff/Perutz ..............................30-33 held at the Sheraton Waikiki Obituaries: Blow/Alexander/McMurdie .................... 33-37 Hotel in Honolulu, July 22-27, 2005. Council is ACA Summer Schools / 2005 Etter Award ..................42-44 particularly appreciative of Database Update: RCSB PDB /CCDC .........................46-47 the hard bargaining efforts Index of Advertisers .......................................................... 47 of S. Narasinga Rao, who negotiated a contract with extremely Database Challenges in Biology ........................................ 48 favorable terms for the ACA. Without his efforts, Hawaii would Dodson Fest .................................................................. 50-51 have been crossed off the list. Thank you, Rao! Venezuelan Diffraction Course ......................................... 51 Argentinian Crystallography Meeting .............................. 52 Ken Dill, a founder of the “Bridging the Sciences Initiative”, Southwest Macromolecular Symposium ......................53-54 presented an overview of the organization and objectives to Contributors to This Issue ................................................. 54 Council. Ken was eloquent in expressing the reasons for this 2004 NSLS Users Meeting ...........................................56-57 initiative as well as convincing in his arguments as to why the Cold Spring Harbor Course / Future Meetings ................. 58 ACA should participate. In accordance with expressed wishes 62 Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference ..........................60-61 of ACA members at the Chicago business meeting, Council voted to contribute $4000 for each of two years to the support USNCCr News / What's on the Cover ..........................62-63 the coalition, which includes ten national scientific organiza- 2005 Summer Courses ...................................................... 64 tions. The coalition hired the Honorable John Porter, a former Donors to ACA Special Funds .....................................66-67 U. S. Representative from Illinois and former chairmen of the Travel Support for IUCr Meetings / Books ....................... 68 U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor during part ACA Corporate Members ..................................................... of the recent five-year NIH budget doubling effort. Mr. Porter will open political doors and advise on all strategies regarding Editors: scientific appropriation bills. The ACA Council asked Judy Flip- Connie Chidester Judith L. Flippen-Anderson 2115 Glenwood Dr. 3521 Launcelot Way pen-Anderson to be the ACA representative to this organization Kalamazoo, MI 49008 Annandale, VA 22003 and she has agreed. tel. 269-342-1600 tel. 703-560-7436 fax 716-852-4846 fax 301-738-6255 Congratulations are in order for Jennifer Swift, the winner of the [email protected] fl[email protected] 2005 Margaret C. Etter Early Career Award. She will be given her award at the presentation of her research in Orlando. Articles by e-mail or on disks are especially welcome. Deadlines for newsletter contributions are: February 1 (Spring), May 1 (Sum- mer), August 1 (Fall) and November 1 (Winter). Matters pertaining Congratulations are also in order for Bob Bau, who was elected to advertisements, membership inquiries, or use of the ACA mailing vice president of the ACA and to Lee Groat, the new Canadian list should be addressed to: representative. It is with warmest regards and considerable regret Marcia J. Colquhoun, Director of Administrative Services that we bid farewell to the past president, Ray Davis, and the American Crystallographic Association current Canadian representative, David Rose and thank them for c/o Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute their outstanding service to the ACA. While Ray will continue 73 High Street, Buffalo, NY 14203-1149 to be active in the ACA, few people really know about his timely Phone: 716-856-9600, ext. 321; FAX: 716-852-4846 e-mail responses and balanced perspective that he provided on E-mail [email protected] all issues before Council. David Rose will be sorely missed for ACA HOME PAGE http://www.hwi.buffalo.edu/ACA/ his wit and his conscientious reporting of Canadian affairs, both ACA Newsletter (ISSN 1958-9945) Number 4, 2004. Published four times per year in the spring, summer, to Council and to the quarterly newsletter. Only those of us who fall and winter for the membership of the American Crystallographic Association, P.O. Box 96, Ellicott Station, Buffalo, NY 14205-0096. Membership in the ACA includes a non-deductible charge of $1.75 from have served on the Council with them can truly appreciate their membership dues to be applied to a subscription to the ACA Newsletter. Periodicals postage paid at Buffalo, New York. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ACA, c/o 73 High St., Buffalo, NY, 14203. conscientious efforts on behalf of all crystallographers. 1 President's Column con't / Guest Editorial Winter 2004 As this is my last column, I want to take the time to thank all The Protein Structure Initiative: Past, members of the ACA Council for their hard work. It has been my privilege to work with some very fine people, who have been so Present, and Future generous with their services. In addition to Ray and David, Lisa OʼKeefe, as secretary, is burdened with reporting the minutes at each meeting, more than 10 in all including Councilʼs meet- The Protein ings with various groups at the annual ACA meetings. Anyone Structure Initia- who has read her detailed minutes knows what an effort this is. tive (PSI) is a ma- Doug Ohlendorf, as treasurer, has the task of keeping the ACA jor NIH-sponsored financially solvent. Not only are his quarterly financial reports effort in structural thorough, but he saves the ACA thousands of dollars annually genomics. The with his fiscally shrewd suggestions. Our federal government long-range goal could really use his services! S. Narasinga Rao is the financial of the PSI is to officer, who oversees the ACA investment portfolio, the proceeds make the three-di- of which support the ACA awards. Rao is also the best bargainer, mensional atomic- bar none, when negotiating contracts for ACA meeting sites. Many level structures a time, he has said his final no to a hotelʼs last offer, only to have of most proteins the hotel call him back right before a Council meeting with better easily obtainable terms for the ACA. Bill Duax is the Executive Officer and IUCR from knowledge of President. Bill keeps us in touch with the progress and plight of their corresponding other crystallographers throughout the world. His enthusiastic DNA sequences. quarterly reports are a constant reminder that we all belong to one The goal is being large community with mutual scientific interests. A huge thank pursued by creating you also goes to Marcia Colquhoun, who has served the ACA a library of structures that systematically samples major protein for sixteen years as Director of Administrative Services. Marcia, families, putting many or most new proteins within homology and her cohort Patti Coley, are the heart and soul of the ACA and modeling distance of a library member. In order to populate this without them, the ACA would not be the smoothly functioning library, x-ray crystallography and NMR are used to determine organization it is today. In addition to Council members, two three-dimensional structures in an efficient, low-cost way. This other people need special acknowledgement – Judy-Flippen mode of high-throughput operation has been visualized as a Anderson and Connie Chidester who share the quarterly task pipeline for which the input is an expression clone, and the output of reminding the President to write a column and in assembling (at less than 100% efficiency) is a three-dimensional structure. the interesting and profitable ACA Newsletter. A hearty thanks The groups also have elaborate target selection procedures to to all who have made my job easier. And so with all there fine choose the proteins to be expressed for the pipeline. people in place, I am happy to turn over the leadership to Louis In 2000 the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Delbaere, who will keep the ACA traditions strong. inaugurated the initial or pilot phase of the PSI by making awards