Purpose and scope of the symposium:
Neutrons produced by present research-oriented sources typically
have wavelengths on the order of Angstroms, and energies of tens
of wavenumbers, and hence are well-suited for probing the structures
and motions of molecules. Neutrons scatter from nuclei, both coherently
and incoherently. Coherent scattering provides information on structure
and collective dynamics, and incoherent scattering on single particle
motion. The large difference in scattering cross-sections between
hydrogen and deuterium provides a powerful method for accentuating
(or masking) the scattering from particular parts of a system by selective
deuteration. Neutron scattering has been demonstrated to be a powerful
tool for characterizing the structures and dynamics of biological molecules.
In light of the on-going planning and construction of new neutron sources
worldwide with unprecedented capabilities (e.g. the Spallation Neutron Source
in the U. S. and the European Spallation Source in Europe), it is anticipated
that biological applications of neutron scattering will continue to increase.
The goals of this symposium are to showcase the unique insight that neutron
scattering can provide into the structure and function of biomolecules,
and outline directions for future applications of new sources and
instruments to biological problems. We also wish to attract structural
biologists and biophysicists who have not had direct experience with
neutron scattering to consider it as a valuable research tool, and to
help define problems that could benefit from the unique capabilities of
using neutrons as probes. Speakers will be invited to present recent results
of applications of a wide variety of neutron scattering measurements (protein
and membrane diffraction, reflectometry, small-angle scattering for
structure; quasi-elastic scattering, spin echo, and vibrational spectroscopy
for dynamics), as well as theoretical molecular models for interpreting the data.
If you are an invited speaker and you have not yet submitted the abstract of your
talk, or
if you wish to participate in the symposium by giving a contributed talk and/or
presenting a poster, please following the directions given
here.
The deadline for submitting abstracts is Friday, March 22, 2002.
If you have any questions concerning this symposium that are not answered on this
web site, please do not hesitate to contact one of the organizers:
Douglas Tobias (dtobias@uci.edu)
Mounir Tarek (tarek@lctn.uhp-nancy.fr)