ACA Summer School: Wrapup Andrew J Howard Illinois Institute of Technology 22 July 2006

What have we been trying to do? The purpose of this school was to familiarize you with the theory and practice of macromolecular crystallography, particularly as regards sample handling and data collection. I hope we’ve succeeded.

What have we studied? Theory of crystallography –Lattices, symmetry, diffraction –Fourier transforms and phases –Techniques for macromolecular phasing Data acquisition and processing Experimental phase determination Molecular replacement Allied and complementary techniques

What should we have studied? The latter stages: –Electron density fitting –Structure refinement –Structure analysis Bioinformatics

What did we do in the wet lab? Grew easy protein crystals traditionally –Via recipes –Via screening Tried some harder crystallizations Looked at possibilities for optimization

What should we have done there? Brought harder crystallization problems Encouraged more students to bring their own uncrystallized proteins Practiced flash-cooling of crystals (but we did do that at the APS…) Made heavy-atom derivatives

What did we do in the computer lab? XrayView X-GEN BnP CCP4 XtalView Indirect use of HKL2000

What should we have added in the computer lab? Electron density fitting Structure refinement Interpretation More time in the computer lab! More experts available to help

What did we do at the APS? Training Monochromatic demo data collection Au-MAD on lysozyme User crystals: monochromatic & MAD Sociological experience: not all beamlines are alike Data processing SBC Sample manipulations at SER, DND

What could we have done there? SeMet MAD on multiple proteins More user-supplied crystals More beamtime? Less?

What else do you need to know? More discussion of sample prep More details on data processing More on the statistical treatment of diffraction data Maximum likelihood Error sources in experimental phasing Model bias, esp. in molecular replacement

Publicity We didn’t do enough this year Need to get the word out to more labs, including non X-ray labs Need to find ways to reach overseas students... And therefore we need money

What else do we need to think about? Better 3D graphics in the cluster Better fundraising so we can offer more scholarships Better creature comforts

It’s really been a pleasure! We’re giving you the CD We’re making the DVDs available for lending—details to follow We’ll arrange for sales as well Website will be updated with the last of the PowerPoints and PDFs We hope you enjoyed the school.