Commission on Structural Chemistry

Introduction

The IUCr Commission on Structural Chemistry (IUCrSC) is one of several International Union of Crystallography Commissions and is responsible for supporting activities relating to crystallographic computing. This page reports on those activities and provides background information.

Contents

• Introduction
• IUCrSC History
• IUCrSC Members
• IUCrSC Sponsored Meetings, Symposia, and Projects
• Reports from IUCrSC Sponsored Meetings and Symposia

• Other Points of Interest
  • IUCr Home Page
  • Statutes and by-laws of the IUCr
  • The early history of the IUCr
  • Useful Sites
    • The World Wide Web Virtual Library for Crystallography
    • American Crystallography Association (ACA) Home Page

Updated 07 September 2000

IUCrSC History

Establishment of a Commission on "Small Molecules"

After the IUCr Congress in Ottawa in 1981 there were grumblings within the small molecule community that "disproportionately few oral sessions were devoted to small molecule structural analysis and those were relegated to the last days of the meeting when protein crystallographers had departed and most attendees were exhausted". To correct this perceived injustice a band of rogue small moleculers (Duax, Flippen-Anderson, Niedle and Stezowski) organized a grass roots movement to establish an IUCr Commission dedicated to "small" molecules. They contacted as many National Committees as possible in an effort to generate enough support to get their proposal on the agenda for the IUCr meeting in Hamburg in 1984. Response from the National Committees was favorable enough to get the proposal on the agenda. From the beginning there was much discussion on what the commission should be called and what topics it should encompass. All small molecules? Only bioglogical molecules? How "big" is "small"?

Lively discussion on naming the Commission and what it should include continued, even at the Congress itself (Acta Cryst. (1987) A43, 438-439), but the end result was that the establishment of the Commission on Small Molecules was officially at the 13th General Assembly in Hamburg.

(d) to cooperate with other international bodies concerned in small-molecule structural analysis.

Later in the Assembly the size of the Commission was increased to have a Chairperson and 10 elected members. This was approved only for the 1984-1987 triennium and the Commission was subsequently reduced to a Chairperson and 8 members.

The first Chair of the Commission was John Stezowski. He was followed by Bill Duax,Frank Herbstein, Karl Kruger and currently Judy Flippen-Anderson.

Discussion on the name and scope of the Commission has continued to this day. To broaden the scope for future developments the name of the Commission was officially changed to the Commission on Structural Chemistry at the 17th General Assembly in Seattle and it now contains representation from the electron diffraction community. The terms of reference have not changed.

Structural Chemistry Commission - August 1999

Front row: Karl Kruger and Judy Flippen-Anderson
Back row: Kiyaoki Tanaka,Gautam R. Desiraju,Graciela Punte, Bernt Krebs, and Gastone Gilli.
Missing from the photo: Vitaly Belsky, Lee Brammer, Kolbjorn Hagen, and Trevor Hambley

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IUCrSC Membership

Judith L. Flippen-Anderson, Chair / Secretary Laboratory for the Structure of Matter, Code 6030 Naval Research Laboratory Washington, DC 20375-5341 Interests: neuropeptides, opiates, explosives, small molecules, crystal growth, hydrogen bonding, structure-activity relationship. Phone: 1(202)7673463 FAX: 1(202)7676874 Email flippen@harker.nrl.navy.mil			Vitaly Belsky L Karpov Institute of Physical Chemistry Vorontsovo Pole 10 103064 Moscow Russia Interests: small molecules, organic crystallochemistry, coordination compounds, organometallic compounds, hydrogen and intermolecular bonding. Phone: (7-095)9163146 FAX: (7-095)9752450 belsky@cc.nifhi.ac.ru
Lee Brammer Department of Chemistry University of Missouri - St. Louis 8001 Natural Bridge Road St. Louis, MO 63121-4499 USA Interests: organometallic intermolecular interactions, hydrogen bonding, charge density, structural databases Other IUCr Responsibilities: Co-editor, Acta Crystallographica Sections B, C Phone: 1(314)5165345 FAX: 1(314)5165342 Email lee.brammer@umsl.edu			Gautam R. Desiraju School of Chemistry University of Hyderabad Hyderabad 500046, India Interests: structural chemistry, supramolecular chemistry Phone: 91(40)3010 567 FAX: 91(40)3010 120 Email grdch@uohyd.ernet.in
Kolbjorn Hagen Department of Chemistry Norwegian University of Science and Technology N-7491 Trondheim, Norway Interests: electron diffraction, gas-phase molecules, conformational analysis Phone: 47 73596223 FAX: 47 73596255 Email kolbjorn.hagen@chembio.ntnu.no			Trevor W. Hambley School of Chemistry University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia Interests: drug design, molecular mechanics, crystallography - small molecule, platinum anticancer complexes Phone: 61(2)93512830 FAX: 61(2)93513329 Email t.hambley@chem.usyd.edu.au
Bernt Krebs Anorganisch-Chemisches Institut der Universitat Munster Wilhelm-Klemm-Str. 8 D-48149 Munster, Germany Interests: structural chemistry, bioinorganic chemistry, molecular modelling, chalcogenides, transition metal complexes, metalloprotein structures ionic conductors, hydrogen bonding Phone: 49(251)833131 FAX: 49(251)838366 Telex: 892529unimsd Email krebs@vnwz01.uni-muenster.de			Demetrius C. Levendis Chemistry Department University of the Witwatersrand Johnanesburg, South Africa Interests: disorder, phase transition, electron density, conglomerate molecular crystals Phone: 27(11)716234857342223 FAX: 27(11)3397967 Email demi@hobbes.gh.wits.ac.za
Kiyaoki Tanaka Department of Material Science and Engineering Nagoya Institute of Technology Gokiso-cho Nagoya 466, Japan Interests: electron density distribution, synchrotron radiation, inorganic materials, chemical bonding, anharmonic thermal vibration Phone: 81(52)7355162 FAX: 81(52)7355162 Email kiyo@tana1.kyy.nitech.ac.jp			Graciela Punte Dept. Fisica Facultad de Ciencias Exactas UNLP CC 67 1900 La Plata Argentina Interests: conformational analysis, QSAR, perovskites, Rietveld method, charge density, non-linear optics Phone: 54(21)39061 FAX: 54(21)252006 Email punte@ayelen.fisica.unlp.edu.ar
Consultants
Karl Kruger Max-Planck-Institut fur Kohlenforschung 45170 Mulheim an der Ruhr Germany Interests: molecular crystal, deformation density distribution, molecular modelling, solid state chemistry, chemical bonding Phone: 49(208)3062174 FAX: 49(208)3062989 Email krueger@mpi-muelheim.mpg.de

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IUCrSC Sponsored Meetings and Symposia and Projects

• Horizons in Hydrogen-Bond Research, September 3-7,2001, Torino, Italy
• Crystallography and Drug Design, August 2001 (immediately following ECM 20), Lodz, Poland
• 11th Symposium on Organic Crystal Chemistry , August 20-24, 2001, Poznan-Rydzyna,
  Poland (Satellite Symposium of ECM 20)

Reports on IUCrSC Sponsored Meetings and Symposia

• Indaba III -Workshop on Symmetry and Structure: Symmetry Breaking, Chirality and Disorder in Molecules and Crystals, August 6-11,2000, Skukuza, Kruger National Park, South Africa - Meeting Report

INDABA III - August 2000 - Invited Speakers

Front row: David Avnir, Judy Flippen-Anderson,Luigi Nassimbeni and Aloysio Janner
Back row: Nobuyuki Harada, Eiji Osawa, Henk Schenk, Jan Boeyens, Gutam Desiraju and Peter Comba

INDABA III - August 2000 - Attendees