SGK/SSCr: Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Kristallographie
Due to the global circumstances, 2021 was a particularly difficult year for the Swiss Society for Crystallography (SSCr), as for everyone else. Some of the usual events did not take place this year, but the Society was flexible and successful in adapting most of them to suit the new requirements. In February 2021, we started with an invited topical talk (zoom lecture) given by Dr. Andrea Thorn who spoke about the Coronavirus Structural Task Force. This talk attracted close to 100 participants and was placed in the context of crystallography being an important tool to obtain structural insight into parts of the virus, such as the spike protein. The lecture also set the stage for our annual Flack Lectures later in the year.
In the beginning of the year, we migrated our website to the SCNAT online portal, a process which is continuing in 2022 and is accompanied by other developments that are aimed at improving our outreach and visibility.
In September, our annual meeting and general assembly, postponed from 2020, could take place again in person. For many of us, this was the first occasion to meet colleagues again in real life, and the event, organized in Fribourg on Sept 2nd by Aurélien Crochet and Katharina Fromm, was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. The meeting was articulated over the “theme”: “From molecules to nanoparticles in biology, chemistry, physics and geology”, resulting in scienitifc sessions oriented at Chemistry, Materials and Biology, accompanied by a poster session. Margarita Rekhtina won the poster proze for: “MgO-based CO2 sorbents: formation of MgCO3 at buried NaNO3-MgO interface investigatied by X-ray grazing incidence diffraction, reflectometry, and electron microscopy”. It was also the occasion to award the prestigious Crystallography PhD Prize, which went to Florian Kleemiss in 2021 for the "Development of quantum-crystallographic methods for chemical and biological applications".
The Society also made arrangements in order to host its Howard Flack Crystallographic Lecture Series despite the severe restriction for such events. The format was changed from a one-week tour through Switzerland by a single invited lecturer to a zoom lecture series given by six different speakers throughout the period from March to November. The topics were focused on macro-molecular crystallography, which was chosen since it was in line with the current global health challenges, and also allowed us to build a link to the structural biology community, historically not well represented in out Society. With fluctuating participation numbers between 40 and 150 as well as stimulating discussion sessions, the 2021 Howard Flack Lecture Series was a great success. In 2022, we will revert to the original format with the topic Electron Crystallography. Lectures will take place at six institutions during the beginning of November.
A further important event that did take place in 2021, in hybrid format, was the IUCr congress (International Union of Crystallography), which was held in Prague and was well visited also by crystallographers from Switzerland. The outgoing president of the SSCr Antonia Neels was elected into the Commission on Powder Diffraction of the IUCr. The new vice-president Simon Grabowsky was elected into the Commission on Quantum Crystallography.
In 2021, three board members of the SSCr reached the end of their term: Antonia Neels (president), Tony Linden (vice-president) and Michael Wörle (secretary). Pascal Schouwink (EPFL) was elected as new president, Simon Grabowsky (University of Bern) as new vice-president and Antonio Cervellino (PSI) as new secretary. Paula Abdala (ETHZ) was elected into the board as member.
Two issues of the Society’s Newsletter: No. 105 and No. 106
Howard Flack Crystallographic Lecture series organized by the SSCr, online event in 2021 consisting of 6 lectures between March and November focusing on macro-molecular crystallography and structural biology.
Gebhard Schertler (ETHZ, PSI): SwissFEL adventures in room-temperature crystallography for optogenetics and to elucidate rhodopsin structures.
Stefan Salentinig (University of Fribourg) talked about bioinspired materials for functional foods.
Dimitrios Fotiadis (University of Bern) concluded the spring semester on May 18th. He explained the role of water molecules and networks in ligand binding.
Michael Hothorn (University of Geneva) restarted the lecture series with a discussion of plant signal transduction cascades.
Jan Pieter Abrahams (University of Basel) talked about the catalytic cycling of the human mitochondrial Lon protease homolog using studies by cryo-EM techniques on October 11th.
Amedeo Caflisch (University of Zurich) closed the Flack Lectures on November 15th with his talk on protein structure-based drug design involving theoretical methods.
Annual Meeting of the Swiss Society for Crystallography (University if Fribourg, September 2, 2021)
The Swiss Society for Crystallography SSCr is an adhering body of the International Union of Crystallography, IUCr, represented in the general assembly by the its IUCr delegates Pascal Schouwink and Simon Grabowsky. A number of Swiss crystallographers are active members in IUCr Commissions and took part in the IUCr congress in Prague 2021 – Antonia Neels was elected to the Commission of Powder Diffraction, Simon Grabowsky to the Commission of Quantum Crystallography.
The Swiss Society for Crystallography SSCr is part of the European Crystallographic Association.
SSCr PhD Prize 2021 awarded for exceptional contributions to crystallography. Florian Kleemiss received the prize in 2021 for the "Development of quantum-crystallographic methods for chemical and biological applications".
Two issues of the Society’s Newsletter: No. 105 and No. 106