2013 – Chemical Crystallography

Seville Master in Crystallography and Crystallization

Nov 242013

seville-oranges The annual Masters in Crystallography and Crystallization is organised by Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo, La Factoría de Cristalización, and CSIC (the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Scientificas). The core module of the course is hosted during October and November in Seville. Richard Cooper from Chem Cryst gave lectures and a workshop for two days on crystallographic structure solution through charge-flipping (based on Pr. Chapuis’ course material) and the mathematics and practicalities of structure refinement.

History of X-ray Crystallography in 3 minutes

Nov 012013

In celebration of the Bragg centenary, a short animated film has been released which details the journey of X-ray crystallography from the work of Max von Laue right up to the present day. The film was produced for the Royal Institution as part of the Ri Crystallography Collection

Mr. Sung Park

Oct 112013

Sung is working on a project to include refinement of anharmonic atomic displacement parameters in CRYSTALS. When he is not in the office, he can be found at Oxford Entrepreneur’s club, on the squash court, the real-tennis court, or injuring himself playing rugby for St Edmund Hall.

Mr. James Arnold

Oct 112013

James is developing new anisotropic motion restraints for the CRYSTALS refinement software. When not in the lab or Exeter bar, he can be found collaborating with the cylons, usually to the detriment of the twelve colonies of humanity.

Mr. Rajiv Gogna

Oct 082013

Rajiv is predicting and modelling the effect of small perturbations of molecular geometry on crystal packing. Often found in the Worcester bar, as captain of darts and as Food and Bar rep. May also be found attempting to kick the ball for Worcester MCR football.

Mr. Jerome G. P. Wicker

Oct 082013

Jérôme’s Part II project used machine learning techniques to develop predictive models for crystallisation. He has returned to the group for a further 3 years and will be extending his earlier work to the study materials at the edge of crystallinity. He is currently serving as captain of Worcester MCR football team.

Red Kite Meeting IV – September 2013

Sep 092013

The fourth meeting of the Red Kite Network was held on Monday 9th September 2013, at Diamond Light Source.

The meeting included a tour of the synchrotron and a full programme of talks by local speakers, focussed on the use of synchrotron radiation as a structural probe.

Programme
1:15 pm Dr. Harriott Nowell (Diamond) Introduction and Welcome
1:20 pm Dr. Steve Thompson (Diamond) “I11 Upgrade Project”
1.50 pm Dr. Philip Chater (Diamond) “Structural Chemistry Through the Length Scales”
2.20 pm Tours, Tea, Coffee and Posters in R22
3.50 pm Dr. Anna Warren (Diamond) “X-ray Imaging as a Tool for Crystal Location”
4.10 pm Jon Treacy (Diamond/Manchester) “SXRD of Metal Oxides”
4.30 pm Rich Knighton (Oxford) “Towards Selective Anion Binding By Templated Interlocked Structures”
4.50 pm Karim Sutton (Oxford) “Big Methods for Small Molecules”
5.10 pm Drinks reception and Posters

The meeting closed with the award of prizes for best posters.

ECM 2013

Aug 282013

This year the European Crystsallographic Meeting was hosted in the UK for the first time since 1977. The meeting at the University of Warwick co-incided with the Bragg Centenary and included a fantastic collection of historical artefacts associated with the Braggs including scientific instruments, models, letters, portraits and notebooks organized by Mike Glazer and Pam Thomas.

Contributions originating from Chem. Cryst. included:

Richard I. Cooper
Space groups and symmetry (ECACOMSIG Computing School lecture and workshop)

Pascal Parois
Alternative criteria for optimal data collection strategy (Talk in the Photocrystallography session)

Kirsten Christensen
Molecular Modulated Structures: Rare Today, Ubiquitous Tomorrow? (Talk in Aperiodic Crystals: Structure, Dynamics and Magnetism session)

Pascal Parois on alternative criteria for data collection strategy optimisation

Bill David at the Bragg Symposium on the past and future of crystallography

The ECA computing school lecturers and participants

Andrew Cairns explaining NLC

ICCOSS 2013

Aug 092013

The 21st International Conference on the Chemistry of the Organic Solid State was held from 5th-9th August 2013 at St Catherine’s College in Oxford. ICCOSS deals with various aspects of the crystalline state and reactivity of organic and hybrid materials from preparation to characterization. It includes the investigation of crystal structures and supramolecular architectures, crystal growth and design, inclusion compounds, topochemical reactions, nanostructures, heterogeneous interfaces.

Amber Thompson presented a talk entitled Modulated structures: a curiosity today, ubiquitous tomorrow? and Richard Cooper presented work carried out with Jerome Wicker: Will it Crystallize?

ACA 2013 – Double Award Winners

Jul 242013

The Annual Meeting of the American Crytsallographic Association was held from July 20-24 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The programme included a broad range of crystallographic topics on structure validation, materials for a sustainable future, structural enzymology, thin films, data mining, and neutron & synchrotron sources.

Karim Sutton represented Chem Cryst, and was awarded a Margaret C. Etter Student Lecturer Award for his contribution on the application of macromolecular phasing techniques to small molecule crystallography. Andrew Cairns from Oxford also attended and gave a talk on designing new materials with large negative linear compressibility, for which he was also awarded a Student Lecturer Award. Congratualtions to them both!

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