Dear All, I have been enjoying “lurking” on this thread - some thoughts
I love this approach to conference organising :-) You missed radiation damage from this list ;-) - is critically connected to isomorphism, resolution, serial methods and is probably the single greatest limitation on X-ray experiments. Also takes us back to the 80’s / 90’s - pre cryo - where many crystallographic studies were serial (and this was not special!) - we are just orders of magnitude faster today Isomorphism, resolution, damage, serial methods, dynamic crystallography - these are all aspects of the same problem i.e. collection in an environment where the sample under study evolves - a topic of “moving targets” would seem to capture some of these ideas I also echo Kay’s comment that serial _rotation_ crystallography is fine - we understand this and can easily get results which look OK / good according to traditional measures - when it comes to still shots from almost any source we are a long way behind Back to lurking now All best Graeme > On 15 Jul 2019, at 20:44, Holton, James M > <0000270165b9f4cf-dmarc-requ...@jiscmail.ac.uk> wrote: > > Hello folks, > > I have the distinct honor of chairing the next Gordon Research > Conference on Diffraction Methods in Structural Biology (July 26-31 > 2020). This meeting will focus on the biggest challenges currently > faced by structural biologists, and I mean actual real-world > challenges. As much as possible, these challenges will take the form of > friendly competitions with defined parameters, data, a scoring system, > and "winners", to be established along with other unpublished results > only at the meeting, as is tradition at GRCs. > > But what are the principle challenges in biological structure > determination today? I of course have my own ideas, but I feel like I'm > forgetting something. Obvious choices are: > 1) getting crystals to diffract better > 2) building models into low-resolution maps (after failing at #1) > 3) telling if a ligand is really there or not > 4) the phase problem (dealing with weak signal, twinning and > pseudotranslation) > 5) what does "resolution" really mean? > 6) why are macromolecular R factors so much higher than small-molecule ones? > 7) what is the best way to process serial crystallography data? > 8) how should one deal with non-isomorphism in multi-crystal methods? > 9) what is the "structure" of something that won't sit still? > > What am I missing? Is industry facing different problems than > academics? Are there specific challenges facing electron-based > techniques? If so, could the combined strength of all the world's > methods developers solve them? I'm interested in hearing the voice of > this community. On or off-list is fine. > > -James Holton > MAD Scientist > > > ######################################################################## > > To unsubscribe from the CCP4BB list, click the following link: > https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=CCP4BB&A=1 -- This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential, copyright and or privileged material, and are for the use of the intended addressee only. If you are not the intended addressee or an authorised recipient of the addressee please notify us of receipt by returning the e-mail and do not use, copy, retain, distribute or disclose the information in or attached to the e-mail. Any opinions expressed within this e-mail are those of the individual and not necessarily of Diamond Light Source Ltd. Diamond Light Source Ltd. cannot guarantee that this e-mail or any attachments are free from viruses and we cannot accept liability for any damage which you may sustain as a result of software viruses which may be transmitted in or with the message. Diamond Light Source Limited (company no. 4375679). Registered in England and Wales with its registered office at Diamond House, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire, OX11 0DE, United Kingdom ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the CCP4BB list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=CCP4BB&A=1
