Expertise in Macromolecular Structure Refinement

Prague, 03 - 04 April 2009

Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Jugoslavskych partyzanu 3, Dejvice, Praha 6
Organized by Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry
Team of organizers: Jan Dohnalek, Jarmila Duskova, Petr Kolenko

The workshop focused on theory and practical application of the modern methods of macromolecular crystal structure refinement was held at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague, on April 3-4 2009. The workshop was organized by Jan Dohnalek, Jarmila Duskova and Petr Kolenko, Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

Six excellent experts in the field accepted invitation to teach and lead the students in a practical session. The programme was divided into two parts: the first day with focus on theoretical and implementation approaches including TLS refinement, use of experimental phasing information in structure refinement, automation, atomic resolution, crucial decisions in structure refinement, common mistakes and concrete examples. The workshop was open to ?non-registered? participants from academia to broaden the impact of the event. The second day was designed so that registered workshop participants could practically experience the up-to-date refinement software including Refmac, SHELXL and Phenix.

Of twenty five applicants, seventeen from eight European countries and Israel were selected to participate in the workshop based on the status of their career or studies, professional interest and general knowledge of the techniques of structural biology. The workshop has brought a new focus on some burning issues in the field and in an excellent way summarized the theoretical background and the practical implementation of macromolecular structure refinement in current software.

Programme