Click on the photo for a printable version

 

A REPORT

As the fortieth consecutive Erice course, a remarkable anniversary, certainly, it deserved the RUBY status it was accorded. The drug discovery focus is a recurring (generally every six years) theme started in 1983; this year's scientific program, drawn by the Directors Colin Groom of UCB UK, and Joel Sussman of Weizmann Institute (with a substantial contribution of a forcedly hidden Neera Borkakoti), featured several presenters who were regulars from all earliest meetingson thos topic, notably Tom Blundell, University of Cambridge and Astex Therapeutics, himself now Director of the Erice International School of Crystallography, Peter Goodford, University of Oxford, formerly of Wellcome and creator of GRID, scientific Director of the Erice 1989 Course on Three Dimensional Molecular Structure and Drug Action, Trevor Petcher, migrated from MRC, Cambridge, UK to Basel Pharma industry (now retired). The program offered a rich diet of recent structural and bio-informatics results from academia (with a limit of only two examples, Bill Weis's (Stanford) beta-andrenergic receptor and Gabriele Cruciani's (Perugia) probing of the impact of structure on metabolic studies) and examples of drug-design applications from both industry (Giovanna Scapin's Merck) on dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibition plus (Sandra Cowan-Jacob's Novartis) on countering Gleevec resistance and academia (Joe Marcotrigiano's Rutgers) on the quite mysterious problem posed by Hepatitis C, unfortunately full of question marks - again to name only three). Piquing widespread interest was the introduction of some nifty new tools for communication of structure by Eran Hodis and Joel Sussman, including Proteopedia (check it out: http://www.proteopedia.org/).

In the final analysis, though, the Erice meeting is a school and the emphasis was firmly on students. They made up the majority of the 165 scientific participants and came from countries all across the globe including Turkey, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Brazil, Nigeria, South Africa, India, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam, within a total 37 nationalities. After lectures in the morning, the program most days shifted to workshops in the afternoon. These offered demonstration sessions by experts on crystallization, database resources like CCDC, EBI and PDB, CCP4 and computational and bio-informatics tools like CCP4, DOCK and GRID. Among the several innovations targeting young scientists were the award of special priority for younger questioners in discussion periods after lectures and the spirited oral poster sessions where presenters had two minutes to preview and promote their posters. Supervisors and mentors take note: this is a powerful and intense experience for young scientists, one they benefit from greatly in terms of new knowledge, new techniques, new friendships, new self-confidence and new spirit. It was a powerful thing to witness.

There were many opportunities for attendees to interact outside formal settings. Most meals were informal collections around tables at local restaurants and covered by the registration fees. Many evening meals after workshops were social events: pizza and pasta parties, the RUBY dinner and dance, when everyone was asked to wear something coloured "ruby". In addition there were two excursions to archeological and historical sites of Phoenician, Elymian (said to be refugees fled the victors after the fall of Troy) and Greek heritage.

None of this could have happened without the careful preparation and precise execution of the schedule by the local organizers, Paola Spadon, Università di Padova, and Lodovico Riva di Sanseverino, Università di Bologna. The computational and communications resources were the work of John Irwin (UCSF), who since a couple of years has been made a permanent member of the team. As in the past, an enthusiastic cadre of young scientists, immediately recognizable by the orange scarves they flourished, provided all manner of assistance to the organizers. Arrivals, departures, lectures, workshops, parties, excursions, everything worked, everything was on time. It's safe to say that none will forget their time in Erice this year. That is especially true of the young scientists.

Downloads
You may find the talks made available by the speakers if you try the gem "The virtual course" in the main 2008 page or by clicking http://erice2008.docking.org/vcourse/

Prizewinners
Annually, the organizers assign the Vaciago Award to the young scientist judged most energetic questioner in discussion after lectures. The winner was the Brazilian Taiana de Oliveira, PhD student at the University of Tromso, Norway (first left in the photo, showing prize winners, the two co-directors, Colin and Joel, plusnPaola and Lodovico). In addition, the IUCr presented two poster prizes, a copy of Int'l Tables, Volume F, signed by Editors Michael Rossmann and Eddy Arnold, both of whom attending this year, and a copy of Int'l Tables, Volume A. They went to Alice Clark - in the photo near to Taiana - from Massey University, New Zealand for her poster on Filamin A and Ida Rosnes from the National University Hospital, Oslo, Norway for her poster on Endonuclease V (5), respectively. Ida is missing from the photo of the prizewinners, due to her early departure to Norway.

Ruby (!!!???) necklaces and crystals, plus local souvenir tiles of the RUBY night were also assigned to elegance, ability, spirit, humour and luck by several participants

Statistics.
120 responses covered by anonimousicity (over a theoretical number of potential 150) to a questionnaire on the web gave a total score of 91.39 to the question "Score the meeting 0 to 100, 100 maximum", while preceeding meetings rarely reached 90. A similar question re the workshop organization (there is an increasing demand for this activity) gave 80% from 108 answers. A complete overview of the answers to the questionnaire may be seen in Surveysummary

From a text by Howard Einspahr, slightly modified by Lodovico, 23 June 2008