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CCSB 2012 (Feb 5/12)

We are pleased to announce the 2nd China Canada Systems Biology Conference and the 19th Methods in Protein Structure Analysis, which will take place at the Ottawa Convention Centre, Ottawa, Canada from June 25-28, 2012. The 2012 symposium is being organized and hosted by the Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology (University of Ottawa), The International Association for Protein Structure Analysis and Proteomics, and the China-Ontario BioAnalytic Consortium (COBAC).

The goal of this meeting is to bring together internationally recognized scientists and students in the field of systems biology, protein biochemistry, and proteomics to promote scientific discussion and the development of new collaborations.

Of special interest for NMR spectroscopists will be the session "Dynamic links between protein structure and function". Invited speakers to this session include Lewis Kay (University of Toronto), Katherine Henzler-Wildman (Washington University School of Medicine), Gianluigi Veglia (University of Minnesota), Kevin Gardner (University of Texas Southwestern) and Dorothee Kern (Brandeis).

More information can be found at http://www.oisb.ca/june_2012_symposium/ccsb_2012.htm

Registration is now open. Abstract submission deadline is May 15th, 2012.

Natalie Goto

Associate Professor

Department of Chemistry
University of Ottawa
10 Marie Curie
Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5

email: Natalie.Goto "at" uottawa.ca
Tel (613) 562-5800 (6918)
Fax (613) 562-5170
Web: http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/ngoto/Welcome.html

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NANUC 2012 Biomolecular NMR BootCamp (Feb 4/12)

NANUC 2012 Biomolecular NMR BootCamp will be hosted by the NMR Facility in Chemistry at the University of Toronto, June 4th to 9th, 2012 on campus.

Our keynote lecturer this year is Prof. Chad Reinstra (UIUC) on BioSolids NMR. We will have Dr. Frank Delaglio (NIDDK, NIH) for the NMRPipe Suite; Dr. Nico Tjandra (LBPC, NIH) with Dynamics and Relaxation; Dr. Bruce Johnson (UMBC) on NMRView; Dr. Charles Schwieters (ISL, NIH) demonstrating Xplor-NIH, and one day on pulse sequence programming (Agilent/Bruker).

More information will be available soon at http://www.nanuc.ca/resources/workshops.php

Please mark your calendars,

Tim

--
Timothy Burrow, Ph.D. MBA
Manager, NMR
University of Toronto 416-978-5728

NMR News!
http://nmrweb.chem.utoronto.ca:8084/users/timburrow/
NMR Web pages:
http://www.chem.utoronto.ca/facilities/nmr/nmr.html

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Solid-State NMR Symposium at CSC 2012 (Feb 3/12)

Colleagues,

this is a reminder that the CSC 2012 abstract submission deadline is February 15.

On behalf of the organizing committee for the 95th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition, it is my pleasure to invite you to take part in the "Solid-State NMR" symposium sponsored by the Physical, Theoretical and Computational Division of the Chemical Society of Canada. CSC 2012 will be held in Calgary, May 26-30, 2012. Three half-day sessions will be devoted to the Solid-State NMR symposium tentatively beginning Sunday afternoon, May 27th.

The confirmed invited speakers are Michèle Auger (Laval), Jochen Autscbach (SUNY - Buffalo), Alex Bain (McMaster), Darren Brouwer (Redeemer), David Bryce (Ottawa), Gillian Goward (McMaster), Yining Huang (Western), Scott Kroeker (Manitoba), Andrew MacFarlane (UBC), Karl T. Mueller (PNNL - Richland), Luke O'Dell (NRC Canada), Rob Schurko (Windsor), Victor Terskikh (NRC Canada), Gang Wu (Queen's).

In addition, the conference will feature the usual poster session. Finally, on Saturday, May 26th the National Ultrahigh-Field NMR Facility for Solids and Bruker Canada will be hosting the 7th Annual Solid-State NMR Workshop. I certainly hope that you and your colleagues can attend the workshop.

Please visit the conference web site http://www.csc2012.ca for a full list of symposia and for abstract submission instructions. All abstracts must be submitted on-line by Wednesday, February 15. The Web site also provides information on the many attractions in the Calgary area.

I am looking forward to seeing you in Calgary at the end of May. Very best wishes.

Yours sincerely,

Rod

--
Dr. Roderick E. Wasylishen
Canada Research Chair in Physical Chemistry
Department of Chemistry
Gunning/Lemieux Chemistry Centre
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada T6G 2G2

Tel: 1-780-492-4336
Lab: 1-780-492-5732
Web: http://ramsey.chem.ualberta.ca

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NMR is Good contest by Cambridge Isotope Laboratories (Jan 25/12)

Have you acquired an NMR spectrum you are really proud of?

Submit - Your favorite NMR spectrum will be showcased on CIL's website and in our Hospitality Suite at ENC 2012.

Vote - Vote for your favorite NMR spectra online, April 16th-18th and in person at CIL's ENC Hospitality Suite. All votes will be entered to win an iPAD2!

Win - Receive the most votes and win a travel stipend for $1500 or CIL product in the amount of $1500.

Dates to remember: Submission starts January 25th and ends March 15th. Voting April 16th-18th. Online or at the ENC Hospitality Suite.

To submit your spectrum: http://www.isotope.com/cil/news/nmr_submission.cfm

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24th Canadian Materials Science Conference – call for abstracts (Jan 20/12)

We invite you to submit an abstract for presentation at the 24th CMSC, Materials: Atoms to Applications, which will be held at The University of Western Ontario, June 5-8, 2012. We are accepting abstracts for both oral and poster presentations; priority will be given to submissions by students.

The Conference has been expanded from its roots in metallurgy to include presentations related to many materials including bio- and nano-materials and composites; a somewhat more detailed list is shown on the attached flyer which we hope you will print and post/distribute to anyone you think might be interested in participating.

We hope you will forward this e-mail to any potential participants, including students and post-docs. Students who live in Canada more than 500 km from London, Ontario and are submitting abstracts may apply for travel support. Presenting students will automatically be entered into the appropriate competition; there will be prizes for the top presentations in each category.

All abstracts must be submitted through webHermes. Information about abstract submission may be found on the CMSC web site under "Abstract Submission"; any questions, problems, etc., please let us know.

We are delighted that Dr. Carlos Tomé (Los Alamos National Laboratories) will present the D.K.C. Memorial Lecture on Thursday evening, June 7, immediately after the banquet (included with registration). We are also pleased to announce that so far fifteen leading researchers in their fields of materials science have accepted our invitation to speak during the Conference.

Everyone who wishes to attend the 24th Canadian Materials Science Conference, whether presenting or not, must register for the Conference. The registration fee includes the opening reception on Tuesday evening, June 5, the poster reception on Wednesday, June 6 and the banquet on Thursday as well as lunches on Wednesday and Thursday, all coffee breaks and all conference materials including the Program/Abstract book. On-line registration is accessible through our web site as is access to reserving a room in Essex Hall on campus.

The University of Western Ontario campus, always beautiful, is especially so in early June; the weather should be superb. Niagara Falls and the superb wine country of the Niagara peninsula are about two hours away as is Toronto, Canada's largest city. The Stratford Shakespeare Festival (45 minutes away) and Shaw Festival (~2.5 hours away) will be offering many presentations before, during and after the CMSC.

We hope to see you in London in June not only attending the 24th CMSC but participating as a presenter of a talk or a poster. webHermes is available for abstract submission from now through midnight, March 5.

Any questions, comments, etc., please let us know.

See you in June.

Dr. Robert J. Klassen, Conference Chair
Dr. Myra Gordon, Conference Coordinator

http://www.eng.uwo.ca/2012cmsc/

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ICMRBS Founders' Medal - Call For Nominations (Jan 5/12)

The International Conference of Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems (ICMRBS; http://www.icmrbs.org) was co-founded by Oleg Jardetzky, Mildred Cohn, and Robert Schulman in 1964. The conference has been organized biannually over the past half century, and currently attracts between 800 and 1,000 scientists to a six-day scientific forum held at different locations across the world.

In 2002, the ICMRBS Council established the Founders' Medal to recognize exceptional contributions by young scientists (under 41 years at the time of the award) to the development and/or progress of the field of magnetic resonance in biological systems. An award winner will receive the Medal as well as $3,000 (in USD), and she or he will be invited to present a lecture at the XXVth ICMRBS meeting, which will be held in Lyon, France, August 19-24, 2012.

Previous Recipients Lewis Kay, Univ. of Toronto, Canada (2002), Nico Tjandra, National Institutes of Health, USA (2005), Marc Baldus, Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Germany (2006), Chad Rienstra, Univ. of Illinois, USA (2008), and Mei Hong, Iowa State Univ., USA (2010).

Nomination Procedure Nominations must be submitted by email to the Chair of the ICMRBS Council (2010-2012), Mitsu Ikura at [mikura "at" uhnres.utoronto.ca]. The deadline for nominations is March 31st, 2012. The nomination package should include (1) cover letter, (2) outline of the candidate's "exceptional contributions", (3) the candidate's CV and publication list.

Selection Committee Peter Wright (Chair), Marc Baldus, Masatsune Kainosho, Ann McDermott, Thomas Prisner

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EUROMAR 2012 preliminary programme (Jan 5/12)

This year's EUROMAR congress will be held in Dublin, Ireland from July 1st to 5th. A preliminary programme is already available at

http://euromar2012.org/program/

and registration will open on January 16th. You are all cordially invited to attend this meeting, which continues the longstanding tradition of AMPERE congresses.

Sincerely yours,

Gunnar Jeschke
General Secretary, Groupement AMPERE

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Raymond Andrew Prize 2012 - Call for nominations (Jan 5/12)

Dear colleagues,

Call for Nominations for the Raymond Andrew Prize for an outstanding Ph.D. thesis in the field of magnetic resonance

For the Raymond Andrew Prize 2012 the AMPERE Prize Committee is seeking your help in searching for qualified candidates who completed their dissertation during the period of 2010/2011. The prize will be presented during the EUROMAR in Dublin (Ireland) from 1th to 5th July 2012.

You are kindly invited to submit nominations by e-mail to

andrewprice "at" nmr.phys.chem.ethz.ch

Suggestions must be received by 15th February 2012 and should include the following documents: (1) Nomination letter, (2) Curriculum vitae, (3) List of publications and presentations at conferences, (4) PhD thesis in PDF.

The thesis should be written in English. In exceptional cases, the thesis may also be submitted in triplicate as a hardcopy to the AMPERE Secretariat.
Submissions that arrive too late will automatically be transferred to the next year. The prize committee will reconsider excellent contributions for two years in a row.

For a list of past Andrew Prize winners see: http://www.ampere.ethz.ch/andrew_prize.htm

Sincerely yours,

Gunnar Jeschke
Secretary General, Groupement AMPERE

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J.W. Zwanziger, "Computing Electric Field Gradient Tensors", Encyclopedia of Magnetic Resonance, Wiley (2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470034590.emrstm1208

D.L. Bryce and R.E. Wasylishen, "Quadrupolar Nuclei in Solids: Influence of Different Interactions on Spectra", Encyclopedia of Magnetic Resonance, Wiley (2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470034590.emrstm1197

G. Wu, "Alkali Metal NMR of Biological Molecules", Encyclopedia of Magnetic Resonance, Wiley (2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470034590.emrstm1210

T.T. Nakashima and R.E. Wasylishen, "Sensitivity and Resolution Enhancement of Half-integer Quadrupolar Nuclei in Solid-state NMR", Encyclopedia of Magnetic Resonance, Wiley (2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470034590.emrstm1200

L.A. O'Dell and C.I. Ratcliffe, "Quadrupolar NMR to Investigate Dynamics in Solid Materials", Encyclopedia of Magnetic Resonance, Wiley (2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470034590.emrstm1209

R.W. Schurko, "Acquisition of Wideline Solid-State NMR Spectra of Quadrupolar Nuclei", Encyclopedia of Magnetic Resonance, Wiley (2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470034590.emrstm1199

O.B. Lapina and V.V. Terskikh, "Quadrupolar Metal NMR of Oxide Materials Including Catalysts", Encyclopedia of Magnetic Resonance, Wiley (2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470034590.emrstm1224

F. Blanc, L. Spencer and G.R. Goward, "Quadrupolar NMR of Ionic Conductors, Batteries, and Other Energy-related Materials", Encyclopedia of Magnetic Resonance, Wiley (2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470034590.emrstm1215

S. Kroeker, "Nuclear Waste Glasses: Insights from Solid-State NMR", Encyclopedia of Magnetic Resonance, Wiley (2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470034590.emrstm1223

A. O'Sullivan, D. Avizonis, J.B. German and C.M. Slupsky, "Software Tools for NMR Metabolomics", Encyclopedia of Magnetic Resonance, Wiley (2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470034590.emrstm1232

N. De Zanche, "Birdcage Volume Coil Design", Encyclopedia of Magnetic Resonance, Wiley (2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470034590.emrstm1288

D.I. Hoult, "Receiver Design for MR", Encyclopedia of Magnetic Resonance, Wiley (2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470034590.emrstm1137

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Albert W. Overhauser (1925-2011) (Dec 14/11)

Albert W. Overhauser, an American physicist best known for his theory of dynamic nuclear polarization, passed away December 10, 2011, at age 86.

Biography from the Purdue Department of Physics

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Cover article in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (Dec 7/11)

Gang Wu, Zhehong Gan, Irene C. M. Kwan, James C. Fettinger, and Jeffery T. Davis, "High Resolution 39K NMR Spectroscopy of Bio-organic Solids," J. Am. Chem. Soc. 133 (2011) 19570–19573. (cover article) http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja2052446

 

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The Passing of a Scientific Giant: Norman F. Ramsey (1915-2011) (Nov 8/11)

National Geographic: "On November 4, 2011, one of the titans of 20th century science passed away in Wayland, Massachusetts. His life and career had spanned most of the 20th century. The technologies that sprung from his work touched the lives of billions living today. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) a mainstay of medical diagnostics technology and the Atomic Clock making possible Global Positioning System (GPS) are among the technologies derived from the experimental techniques he developed."

Read the full obituary by National Geographic (external link).

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CREATE program in Bionanomachines (Nov 2/11)

Graduate and Undergraduate Research Opportunities in Bionanotechnology

The new NSERC-sponsored CREATE Training Program in Bionanomachines (CTPB) offers summer research stipends to undergraduates and 2-year stipends to graduate students in 22 laboratories in Montreal, Québec City, Calgary and Saskatoon. Bionanomachines is a young and developing field at the intersection of structural biology, supramolecular chemistry and biophysics that seeks to understand how biological machines function at the molecular level, and to harness their power for applications in health, chemistry and physics. For more information visit http://bionano.ca/en or contact the CTPB Coordinator at (bionano.med "at" mcgill.ca).

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J.R. Bothe, E.N. Nikolova, C.D. Eichhorn, J. Chugh, A.L. Hansen and H.M. Al-Hashimi, "Characterizing RNA dynamics at atomic resolution using solution-state NMR spectroscopy," Nature Methods 8 (2011) 919–931. (Review) http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1735

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Russell Varian Prize 2012 - Call for nominations (Nov 1/11)

The Russell Varian Lecture and Prize

The Russell Varian prize honors the memory of the pioneer behind the first commercial Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrometers and co-founder of Varian Associates. The prize is awarded to a researcher based on a single innovative contribution (a single paper, patent, lecture, or piece of hardware) that has proven of high and broad impact on state-of-the-art NMR technology. The prize aims to reward the initial contribution that laid the ground for the specific technology of great importance in state-of-the-art NMR. It is sponsored by Agilent Technologies and carries a monetary award of 15,000 Euro. The award ceremony will take place at the XXVth ICMRBS in Lyon, August 19-24, 2012, with the winner delivering the Russell Varian Lecture.

Rules for the Russell Varian Prize
- Only single pieces of work are considered (a paper, a lecture, a patent, etc).
- In case of multiple authorship, the prize is awarded to the author with the largest creative and innovative share of the contribution. Only in exceptional cases of truly equal shares can the prize be split between two authors of the same contribution.
- No individual can receive the prize more than once.
- Prize winners become members of the Advisory Board for the Russell Varian Prize that evaluates future nominations and makes recommendations to the Prize Committee.

Call for Nominations
Nominations must be forwarded by email to the Secretary of the Prize Committee, Gareth A. Morris. The deadline for nominations is February 13, 2012. Nominations should be laid out in the format of a publishable laudatio proposal that in the case of multiple authorship must include an outline of why the nominee is the most innovative author behind the paper. Attention is further drawn to the fact that the Russell Varian prize rewards the earliest seed paper of an important technology rather than later more comprehensive and highly quoted papers.

Prize Committee
Muriel Delepierre (ICMRBS 2012 representative), Jean Jeener (Chairman), Eriks Kupce, Gareth A. Morris (Secretary), Alex Pines, and Ole W. Sørensen

Advisory Board for the Russell Varian Prize
Erwin Hahn, Nicolaas Bloembergen, John S. Waugh, Alfred G. Redfield, Albert W. Overhauser, Martin Karplus

Prof. Gareth A Morris
School of Chemistry, University of Manchester
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
Tel (0) 161 275 4665
g.a.morris "at" manchester.ac.uk

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myPulse (Nov 1/11)

Dr. Eric Ye (900 NMR Facility/University of Ottawa) has written an applet myPulse (beta version) to calculate the new 90 pulse length, power level and r.f. frequency based on known initial pulse parameters (us, dB) assuming the linear amplifier response. The applet is written in Python and works in the Bruker’s TopSpin environment.

The purpose of this applet is similar to the popular Bruker’s pulse program, however the initial parameter input is manual, i.e. does not automatically use p1 (us) and pl1 (dB) values from the currently open dataset. Please enquire if you would like to test this applet and to provide your comments and suggestions. Email: Victor.Terskikh@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca