Announcement

Workshop on Cryo-EM Modeling Based on X-ray Crystallography

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The purpose of the workshop is 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. In particular, the workshop will cover NAMD and VMD, Molecular Dynamics Flexible Fitting (MDFF) and DireX. Relevant physical concepts, mathematical algorithms, and computational methods will be introduced, including molecular dynamics simulation, de novo structure determination based on cryo-EM maps, deformable elastic networks, stereochemical validation of proteins and nucleic acids, and quality checks of fitted structures. Specific examples utilizing the MDFF and DireX programs will be introduced and discussed in detail. Participants are invited and encouraged to bring their own molecular modeling problems to the workshop, for group discussion of how to address those problems via a computational approach. The workshop will be presented by members of the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and members of the Computational Structural Biology Group from the Forschungszentrum Julich.

The workshop is designed for researchers in the fields of cryo-electron microscopy who seek to fit molecular structure from x-ray crystallography into cryo-EM density maps, and computational biophysicists who are interested in cryo-EM guided modeling method development. Advanced lecture sessions will be followed by extended discussion periods between lecturers and participants and laboratory time in which students will be able to work on hand-on tutorials and their own molecular modeling projects. Enrollment is limited to 20 participants. The workshop will be held January 8-10, 2014, in Urbana, Illinois. All participants are required to bring their own laptop for use in the workshop training sessions. Participants must arrange and pay for their own travel and accommodations. Registration fees and important dates are described below.