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Quasicrystals in Context (Adapted from Chemistry World)

Forty years ago Dan Shechtman and colleagues published the paper that introduced quasicrystals to the world, followed just a few weeks later by one that explained how they were mathematically possible by Dov Levine and Paul Steinhardt. The discovery and long fight to acceptance by a sceptical community is a great story, made all the better – and more widely known – by the award of the 2011 chemistry Nobel prize to Shechtman. For more about quasicrystals, see this article by Anna Demming, and Marjorie Senechal’s memoir on the ACA History website. Sharon Glotzer of the University of Michigan, US, writes in a news & views article for Nature that the discovery 'serves as a reminder that the laws of thermodynamics … probably have many more surprises in store’.

As part of the IUCr 75th Anniversary Symposium held at the IUCr Congress in Melbourne, Marvin Hackert recalls his 12 years on the Executive Committee of the International Union of Crystallography. He includes many photographs of the people with whom he worked, with special emphasis upon the events of the International Year of Crystallography (IYCr 2014). See the video here.

Robert Von Dreele and Brian H. Toby received the 2019 Trueblood Award for GSAS-II. In honor of Bob Von Dreele’s 80th birthday, a day-long series of 22 talks, followed by comments from Bob himself, was organized by James Cline (NIST) and Brian H. Toby (Argonne) at NIST. The presenters represented many countries and laboratories. Many speakers gratefully acknowledged Bob’s help in answering questions and modifying code to for their particular purposes. The full playlist is on the ACA YouTube channel.

Tamir Gonen pioneered the development of the MicroED method that uses electron diffraction to determine atomic structures of proteins, peptides and small molecules from crystals of nanometer to micrometer size. In 2018, Gonen demonstrated the use of MicroED in determining structures of small molecules directly from powders to atomic resolution. The method could deliver atomic resolution structures using raw powdered material in under 30 minutes without any prior knowledge of the content, and without the need for purification or crystallization screening. No other structural biology method can deliver atomic resolution structures directly from mixtures and without purification and crystallization efforts. For this demonstration the method was named one of the top ten breakthroughs by Science Magazine in 2018 and was featured by the director of the National Institutes of Health. More recently, Gonen developed methods for using MicroED to study samples of membrane proteins. Using a scanning electron microscope with a focused ion beam, Gonen showed that membrane protein crystals of any size can be processed to deliver atomic resolution structures using MicroED. Moreover, the structure of important surrounding lipids and key bound modulators can also be determined from these samples. Tamir Gonen’s 2023 Patterson Award Lecture is now available online here.

Margaret C. Etter, whom the ACA Etter Award honors, gave three important lectures which have been placed on YouTube by the University of Minnesota. They are thoughtful and clear presentations on the following topics:

Phase Transformations and Crystal Reactions
Crystal Growth and Morphology
Graph Sets

It is especially valuable to have the person who originated the “Etter Rules” – applying graph sets to hydrogen bonding patterns in the solid state – talk about graph sets!

At the White House in October Gregory Petsko received the National Medal of Science, “for advancing our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases like ALS, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s.” the press release said. “His role in founding structural enzymology, along with his commitment to educating the public about brain health, have empowered people around the world and raised the ambitions of our nation regarding aging with dignity.” See, for instance, Petsko’s 2016 TED talk, “The Coming Epidemic of Neurodegenerative Diseases.” Much of his work on structural enzymology was done in collaboration with Brandeis Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry Emerita Dagmar Ringe.