April 23-28, 2006

Future Crystallographers Attend RapiData 2006 at NSLS

Once again this spring, 48 future crystallographers from around the world gathered at BNL for RapiData 2006. This week-long course is designed to introduce students to the best and latest equipment and techniques. The students also get to meet and learn from the leading developers of software for macromolecular x-ray crystallography.

The students and instructors, RapiData class of 2006.

The course has been offered annually from 1998 by BNL's Biology and National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) departments. It reflects the educational component of the PXRR (Macromolecular Crystallography Research Resource), funded jointly by the National Center for Research Resources - a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) - and DOE's Office for Biological & Environmental Research. The course's usefulness to the nearly 400 who have participated since its inception is apparent from the constant numbers of new students who sign up to participate each year. Many of these budding crystallographers are now becoming experts in the field and sending others from their institutions to BNL to learn the initial steps of this highly specialized area of interest.

This year's course, which ran April 23-28, began with three days of lectures and tutorials taught by scientists from BNL, industry, academia, and other national labs. Then the beamline staff and other teachers guided the students through a marathon, 60-hour data-collection session, which eventually employed six NSLS beam lines for the whole time, and three others to help out as needed. At the same time, nine different tutorials were underway. As usual, half of the students came with their own specimens to analyze, while the other half learned as observers.

Said Bob Sweet of Biology, who, with Denise Robertson and Alex Soares, primarily organized the course, "This program excites both the students and the teachers by providing a short 'total immersion' in this technology. Students learn how to obtain and process real data, learning how to locate and fix problems as they arise. It's a gripping experience. About half a dozen of the students left with potentially publishable results. This is inspiring to everyone in the course.

"The students find that there is always a hands-on scientific supervisor available to give expert help, so they can set up experiments in the optimal way, or find out the next step without wasting time," continued Sweet. "We depend on so many team members for the program's success: many members of the PXRR (the Biology and NSLS Macromolecular Crystallography Research Resource), NSLS staff members, and about 18 outside teachers."

In addition to the DOE and NIH funding, a special grant was provided by the International Union for Crystallography and the US National Committee for Crystallography to assist half a dozen Latin American students in attending the course. Additional support is provided by Brookhaven Science Associates, the NSLS, and several very generous equipment vendors and drug companies. For more information, go to www.px.nsls.bnl.gov/RapiData2006/.

ARTICLE BY: Liz Seubert

PHOTO BY: Roger Stoutenburgh