Report To ACA Council By the Officers of the BioMac Special Interest Group of the ACA

For the 2005 ACA meeting the BioMac SIG sponsored 8 sessions and cosponsored one session with the SR SIG. The Patterson Award session also falls under the BioMac fields of interest.The SIG officers have been planning the 2006 ACA meeting by soliciting input for session topics via email in April 2005. The list of topics were collected, prioritized and presented to the BioMac SIG membership present (approx 50 members present) at our annual meeting held during the 2005 Orlando ACA meeting on Tuesday May 30, 2005 at 5:30 PM. Craig Ogata as chair-elect presided over the presentations, and discussions of the topics. Following discussions the members present voted on their preference of topics. For the 2006 meeting the BioMac SIG is proposing a joint Transaction session with the Neutron Scattering SIG and Small Molecule SIGS. Additionally we will be proposing jointly sponsored sessions with several other special interest groups.The selected session topics and jointly sponsored sessions will be proposed at the planning meeting for the 2006 meeting

The BioMac SIG had a request from Alberto Podjarny for an email be sent to the membership requesting projects where Neutron diffraction studies would befit the project. This list of projects is being collected for the proposal of interest in the submission of an equipment grant to the NIH for the SNS macromolecular beamlne construction. It was agreed the this email should be sent

BIOMAC SIG Meeting 30 May 2005

Steve Ginell and Craig Ogata polled the SIG members in advance of the meeting, soliciting suggestions for session topics for next year. The suggested topics were collated and presented at the SIG meeting.

First, it was agreed that there are four topics that typically represented at all meetings, and that these topics should be included in the Hawaii meeting. They are as follows: Difficult structures, Crystallization, New structures, Computational methods.

It was also agreed that it would be a good idea to have a Transactions symposium devoted to neutron scattering and co-sponsored by the neutron scattering SIG.

Next, a vote was taken to rank-order additional topics in terms of preference. The results are given here, in order from most popular to least popular:

1. Complementary techniques

2. Large macromolecular assemblies

3. Membrane proteins

4. Cell surface proteins/host-pathogen interactions/immune system proteins

5. Structural genomics: What’s in it for the little guy?

It was agreed that we should explore the possibility of co-sponsoring some of these sessions (for example, the large macromolecular assemblies topic could be co-sponsored by the synchrotron SIG).

After the voting, Alberto Podjarny mentioned that, with new neutron sources becoming available, it is important that the members of the neutron scattering community receive feedback from members of the biological macromolecule community about exactly which scientific projects should be given highest priority. He suggested sending an email to all SIG members to solicit their opinions on this matter, and those present agreed.