1. ACA Summer School: Wrapup Andrew J Howard Illinois Institute of Technology 30 July 2005

2. 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.

3. What have we studied? Theory of crystallography Lattices, symmetry, diffraction Fourier transforms and phases Data collection Data processing Experimental phase determination Molecular replacement

4. What should we have studied? The latter stages: –Electron density fitting –Structure refinement –Structure analysis Bioinformatics Combined techniques (crystallography and... )

5. What did we do in the wet lab? Grew easy protein crystals traditionally –Via recipes –Via screening Used preloaded Nextal trays Viewed growing crystals in the Robodesign Minstrel system

6. What should we have done there? Brought harder crystallization problems Encouraged more students to bring their own uncrystallized proteins Moved the whole process to a less vibratory laboratory! Practiced flash-cooling of crystals

7. What did we do in the computer lab? XrayView X-GEN D*Trek BnP CCP4 Indirect use of HKL2000

8. 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

9. What did we do at the APS? Training Monochromatic demo data collection Br-MAD on lysozyme User crystals: monochromatic data Sociological experience: not all beamlines are alike Data processing tutoring @ SBC Sample manipulations at SER

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

11. 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

12. 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

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

14. It’s really been a pleasure! We’re giving you the CD We’re making the DVDs available for lending 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.