Collaborative Workshop:

The CryoEM Map Workshop at Houston

National Center for Macromolecular Imaging
University of Houston
Texas Learning and Computation Center
Houston, TX

January 14-17, 2010

A "collaborative workshop" involves significant contributions by the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group (TCBG), e.g. lectures, learning materials, and funding, to a training event organized by an external group. At the CryoEM map workshop organized primarily by the National Center for Macromolecular Imaging, and held in Houston, Texas from January 14-17, 2010, TCBG members provided one day of lectures and tutorial sessions (e.g., "Introduction into the Molecular Dynamics Flexible Fitting Method" and "Introduction into Stereochemical Validation of Proteins and Nucleic Acids") for approximately 80 graduate students, postdoctoral associates, and other scientists attending the workshop. Further, TCBG covered most travel costs for its members instructing at the workshop. Workshop supported in part by NIH P41-RR005969 "Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics".

The purpose of the workshop was to present recent developments in the area of cryo-EM guided modeling of macromolecular structures and to provide the participants with simple, practical experience in using these methods. Every morning during the workshop, the participants were given an introduction into several methods and the corresponding software packages implementing those methods (e.g., VMD and NAMD). The aim of the introduced methods was very broad, ranging from de novo structure determination based on cryo-EM maps, to different flavors of flexible fitting of known macromolecular structures into cryo-EM maps, to quality checks of the resulting structures. After the general introduction of the methodology, the participants had the opportunity to learn how to use the corresponding software in hands-on tutorials supported by the developers of the methods.