5th Annual VIVA NMR Symposium

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that the 5th VIVA (VIctoria VAncouver) NMR Symposium is to take place at St. John's College, UBC, Friday, July 29th, 2011.

The scope of this one day symposium is to bring together NMR users, researchers and managers from western Canada and the north-west of the USA to share information on topics of general NMR interest and to foster the development of an NMR community. Talks or poster presentations by graduate students working in any aspects of NMR are especially encouraged. Deadline for registration is July 15th, 2011.

Further details and registration info are available at http://www.chem.ubc.ca/viva/index.html

We look forward to seeing you all again.

Sincerely

Zhicheng (Paul) Xia
Department of Chemistry
University of British Columbia

Review in Progress in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

Luke A. O’Dell "Direct Detection of Nitrogen-14 in Solid-State NMR Spectroscopy," Progress in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (2011) accepted. (Invited Review) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pnmrs.2011.04.001

PCCP lists 25 most cited Canadian research articles

Physical Chemisty Chemical Physics has announced that the Canadian Society for Chemistry (CSC) is now one of its co-owner societies. To celebrate this new partnership, PCCP has created a collection of 25 top cited articles from authors based in Canada to showcase some of the great Canadian research published in PCCP. Five articles on this list are from Canadian solid-state NMR research groups, including four papers enabled by the National Ultrahigh-Field NMR Facility for Solids. http://nmr900.ca/nmr_news.html#pccp

6th Solid-State NMR Workshop at CSC 2011

The National Ultrahigh-Field NMR Facility for Solids and Bruker Canada are pleased to present the 6th Annual Solid-State NMR Workshop at the 94th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition in Montreal ( http://www.csc2011.ca/ ). The workshop will take place on Sunday afternoon, June 5, 2011, in the Palais des congrès de Montréal.

This annual Canadian solid-state NMR event focuses on the latest developments in solid-state NMR spectroscopy with emphasis on practical aspects and applications in materials and life sciences. The workshop will be of interest not only to NMR spectroscopists, but also to students and other researchers interested in using modern NMR techniques in their research practice.

Confirmed workshop speakers: Alexandre Arnold (UQAM), Robert Attrell (Ottawa), Steven Hartman (Brock), Yining Huang (Western), Karen Johnston (Windsor), Luke O'Dell (NRC), Patrick Walsh (Toronto). Registration for the NMR Workshop is free but space is limited.

To register http://nmr900.ca/events_e.html

Note that the NMR Workshop registration is separate from the CSC 2011 conference registration.

Special Issue of Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Solid-State NMR of Materials for Energy Storage and Conversion Dear Friends and Colleagues, Profs. Eckert and Klinowski have asked us to edit a special issue of Solid State NMR, with a focus in the area of NMR as applied to Materials for Energy Storage and Conversion. To this end, we would like to invite you to submit a manuscript for this special issue. Topics should include recent results on the development and use of solid-state NMR strategies for the characterization of energy materials, for example materials for use in lithium ion and rechargeable batteries in general, supercapacitors, polymer-electrolyte-membrane fuel cells, and solid-oxide fuel cells. We would like to include the wide variety of NMR methods that have been used in this field, their strengths, and avenues for further development. In an NMR-focused journal, it would also be appropriate to include some of the "how to" details or "tips and tricks" relevant to the successful implementation of the various NMR methods. Please take these guidelines as suggestions only, and feel free to submit any original manuscript on a topic you feel would be appropriate to this community. The deadline for receipt of manuscripts will be June 1, 2011, and we anticipate publication around October/November 2011. Of course, all the manuscripts will be subject to strict peer-review procedures. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions regarding potential topics, or any other concerns. We would appreciate hearing from you if you plan to submit a manuscript. Submission will be handled through the Elsevier web site. Author instructions and submission details can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/622947/authorinstructions With thanks and best regards Clare P. Grey & Gillian R. Goward

Solid-State DNP-NMR Spectrometer at Guelph

Bruker has announced that the first commercial 395 GHz solid-state DNP-NMR spectrometer (600 MHz) will be installed at the University of Guelph (read the full press-release).

Agilent to develop 1-GHz NMR spectrometer

Agilent is well-prepared for the upcoming 52nd ENC Conference. Among other NMR products Agilent has announced that it is developing a 1 GHz NMR system and DNP NMR. The latter project is in collaboration with Bridge12. Read the full press release from Agilent (external link).

Science: Special Issue on Superconductivity

Science magazine celebrates the 100th anniversary of the discovery of superconductivity by Heike Kammerlingh Onnes in April 1911. Science, 8 April 2011, volume 332, issue 6026 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6026.toc#SpecialIssue

ICSG 2011: International Conference on Structural Genomics

Dear Colleague, We hope that you are planning to join us in Toronto, Canada for the International Conference on Structural Genomics 2011 which will be held on May 10-14, 2011. We have an excellent scientific program prepared which includes both oral and poster presentations (scientific program). Participants will also enjoy the fabulous view of the city of Toronto during the banquet to be held at the revolving 360 Restaurant at the top of the CN tower. An optional post-conference tour to Niagara Falls will also be available. We invite you to register on line by April 15, 2011 at 11:59 pm EST. A limited number of late poster abstracts will be accepted until April 12, 2011 at 11:59 pm EST In addition to the main ICSG meeting, there will be a whole day of concurrent satellite workshops (May 10, 2011) that are free for ICSG 2011 registrants, including: Small Molecule Screening Workshop - This hands-on workshop will allow participants to screen a protein of their choice for binding of selected compounds, using thermal shift assays. iSee: Interactive 3D Documents for the Dissemination of Structural Biology - This hands-on workshop will familiarize participants with the iSEE 3D graphical software which allows interactive viewing of 3 dimensional molecular structures and is currently used by journals such as Nature Structural & Molecular Biology and PLoS Biology and PLoS ONE Eukaryotic Gene Expression Systems Workshop - This workshop will provide participants with a detailed understanding of the state-of-the-art for production of eukaryotic proteins destined for biochemical, biophysical, and structural analyses.. Workshop on NMR Methods for Structural Biology - This workshop will survey technologies for structure/function investigations of proteins, developed in (or in collaboration with) structural genomics projects, that are ready for widespread use by the wider biological community. Phenix Crystallography Software Workshop - This workshop will introduce the PHENIX software for macromolecular structure determination and the core algorithms that it uses. It will provide hands-on tutorials for crystallographers of all levels. The workshop registration deadline is Monday April 11, 2011 at 11:59 pm EST Please visit http://www.icsg2011.org/ for ICSG 2011 meeting and workshop registration details and to submit your poster abstract. We hope to see you there! Best regards, Cheryl Arrowsmith - ICSG 2011 Organizer Ted Baker, Stephen Burley, Dino Moras, Joel Sussman, Shigeyuki Yokoyama, Tom Terwilliger - ISGO Executive Committe

Recognition: André Simpson

André Simpson (Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto at Scarborough) has been awarded the 2011 CSC W.A.E. McBryde Medal for his research in the development of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy with the specific objective to address environmental problems at a molecular level. From the citation: "Andre Simpson obtained his PhD from the University of Birmingham, U.K. then moved to the U.S. completing two postdoctoral fellowships, first at Mississippi State and then at Ohio State University. Simpson is an associate professor at the University of Toronto. He is best known for his research developing nuclear magnetic resonance-based methods to study the structure and interactions in complex environmental mixtures. His research has helped understand how and why different carbon pools respond to climate change and unravel the complexities of contaminant fate and toxicity in the environment. Simpson has published more than 60 refereed articles since his first journal publication in 2000 and contributed to 12 book chapters. In 2004, he co-founded the Environmental NMR Centre at the University of Toronto, a first of its kind in Canada. In 2008 he was ranked in the “Ten to Watch for in 2008” by the Toronto Star. Later in the same year he was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry/Society for Environmental and Toxicology and Chemistry – Environmental Science Award, a global award recognizing outstanding contributions to the field." Read the announcement at http://www.chemistry.ca/index.php?ci_id=1953&la_id=1