MC17 will be the event for an update on the challenges at the frontiers of applied scientific research, bringing together, through all forms of microscopy, advances on Nanotechnologies and applications, Medicine and health, Energy conversion, Environmental protection, and much more.
http://www.imc-17.com/
This school will take place prior to the "International Microscopy Congress 17" This single-particle school is an intensive hands-on course/workshop, in which theory and practice are tightly intertwined. The spectrum of topics covered suits attendees that are entirely new to the field as well as those for whom the technique is of growing importance and who wish to acquire an in-depth understanding of the field. Topics range from data collection and three-diemensional reconstruction techniques to the interpretation of fitted X-ray structures into cryo-EM maps. The final days of the conference will be devoted to more advanced topics such as dealing with heterogeneous data sets ("4D" cryo electron microscopy) and high-resolution refinements. The attendees are expected to bring along a modern notebook computer onto which all necessary software will be installed. Most processing will take place in the context of the IMAGIC software system but other software packages will also be available. Cryo-EM data sets will be distributed for processing during the course. Students may bring along their own data sets for processing and discussion. Details of the fourth Brazil school will become available on the meeting site: www.single-particles.org/school/
We are pleased to announce the 2010 Cryo-EM Modeling challenge and a PSB 2011 workshop, organized by Steven Ludtke, Wah Chiu, Helen Berman and Gerard Kleywegt.
http://ncmi.bcm.edu/challenge
* Modeling as a tool for interpretation of cryo-EM reconstructions *
Cryo-EM single particle analysis is a method for determining structures of large molecules and macromolecular assemblies at resolutions ranging from 3.5 - 30 A. Interpreting the density maps produced by this technique represents an ongoing challenge, for which molecular modeling techniques offer some unique solutions.
Over the last five years, cryo-EM single particle analysis has begun producing structures at resolutions better than 5 A, with subnanometer resolutions becoming common. At resolutions between 5 and 9 A it becomes possible to move beyond simple rigid-body docking and alter atomistic models to reposition helices and sheets, to better fit the cryo-EM based density maps. At 3-5 A resolution de-novo C-alpha traces and in some cases full atomistic models can be constructed directly from the cyro-EM density without invoking x-ray crystallography.
We call this a challenge rather than a contest because, unlike CASP, there is no hidden answer to be revealed. In this project, we provide publicly available cryo-EM densities for a selected set of structures at different resolutions, and challenge those in the modeling community to apply their tools to extract as much information as they can from each. At the end, the results will be evaluated by comparing the results of different groups, and validating against any other existing knowledge about each target. We hope this will yield new insights into these published structures, and at the very least, it will establish the capabilities of current modeling methods, and give the cryo-EM community some guidance as to how to proceed with maps in various resolution ranges. For modelers it provides a new area in which to apply/develop their techniques, and demonstrating your tools' capabilities may lead to new opportunities for collaboration.
Please see the challenge website for more details.
PS - As a side note to the cryo-EM community: Each of the target maps was selected for a specific reason relevant to the challenge goals, and we apologize that we were not able to include representative structures from all of the groups working at high resolution.
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Steven Ludtke, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Co-Director National Center For Macromolecular Imaging Dept of Biochemistry and Mol. Biol.
Baylor College of Medicine
sludtke@bcm.edu
stevel@alumni.caltech.edu
We have been asked to provide a short article on the Wikibooks open-content textbook on Software Tools For Molecular Microscopy:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Software_Tools_For_Molecular_Microscopy
as part of a review that will appear in the next few months in Methods in Enzymology.
Please let us know if you think that any packages are missing from the Wikibook pages so that we can provide as accurate a snapshot as possible of these pages in the published article.
The community is also encouraged to not only use the pages but add content, correct errors, and make any other contributions that might be useful.
Bridget Carragher, Associate Professor
This is to inform you that the third workshop on electron crystallography of membrane proteins will take place this summer, August 1-7, 2010, in C-CINA at the University of Basel, Switzerland.
The workshop will follow the pattern of the two previous workshops, which took place in 2006 and 2008, and are described here:
http://2dx.org/workshop
Among other topics, the usage of the 2dx, MRC and IPLT software systems will be taught in this workshop.
Please reserve the date. More info will follow soon.
Henning Stahlberg
Center for Cellular Imaging and Nano Analytics (C-CINA) at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) Structural Biology and Biophysics, Biozentrum, WRO-1058, Mattenstrasse 26 University Basel, CH-4058 Basel, Switzerland
Tel: +41-61-387 32 62 (office)
Tel: +41-61-387 32 31 (Karen Bergmann, administrative assistant)
Fax: +41-61-387 39 86
mailto:Henning.Stahlberg@unibas.ch
http://c-cina.org
http://2dx.org
