Fwd: Third International Congress on Electron Tomography Conference

[Gina Sosinsky]

Subject: Third International Congress on Electron Tomography Conference
From: "Kimberly Friello" <kxf04 at health.state.ny.us>
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 09:47:01 -0400

THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON ELECTRON TOMOGRAPHY

                           Conference Description

Date:  April 29 ? May 2, 2004.

Location:  The Rensselaerville Institute, Rensselaerville, NY, USA.

Conference Chair:  Bruce F. McEwen, Wadsworth Center, Albany NY, USA.

History and Focus:  Biological electron microscopy has enjoyed a strong
resurgence due to improved instumentation and specimen preparations, and
the development of quantitative three-dimensional reconstructions methods
including electron crystallography, helical reconstruction, single particle
methods, and electron tomography.  Electron tomography is the most general
of these methods because it can be applied to larger, plieomorphic
structures such as cellular organelles.  For this reason, electron
tomography is the link between high-resolution structural determination and
cellular function.   Electron tomography is also proving to be a powerful
tool for a rapidly increasing number of material science applications.
       The flexibility of electron tomography derives from collecting all
the data on a single copy of the specimen.  However, this approach presents
a number of technical and computational challenges that are unique to
electron tomography.  These issues prompted Bram Koster and David Agard to
organized the first international congress on electron at Ringberg Castle
in Southern Germany on March 16-19, 1997.   As anticipated, bringing
together practitioners of electron tomography for an intensive 3-day
interaction was instrumental in driving technical development and
increasing the number of users and applications.  At the time of the second
meeting, held in Amsterdam on October 17-20, 2001, an increasing number of
electron microscopists from both biological and material sciences were
starting to employ electron tomography.  To accommodate the surge in new
interest, the organizers incorporated an educational component to the
conference. The Journal of Structural Biology devoted special issues to
manuscripts from participants of both the earlier congresses (issues
120(3), Dec 1997, and 138(1&2), April, 2002).
       At the current juncture, electron tomography is well established and
being employed for an increasingly broad range of applications, well beyond
those envisioned at the time of the first conference.   Hence our strategy
for the third congress is to invite speakers from a wide range of
approaches and technical expertise in order to stimulate
cross-fertilization of ideas. To further promote discussion, we have
limited the number of symposia speakers and included a long discussion
period after each presentation.  The program also has two three-hour poster
sessions with two evening sessions devoted to discussions of the posters.
It is anticipated that the poster sessions, and scheduled free times, will
generate a large amount of informal discussions to complement the more
structured discussions of the morning and evening sessions.

Venue:  The Rensselaerville Institute is located in a picturesque hamlet 40
minutes South of Albany NY.  This self-contain conference center provides
an opportunity for extensive discussion and creative exchange in the
tradition of the Gordon Conferences and the first Tomography Congress at
Ringberg castle.  The conference center has the capacity to house about 90
participants and we expect to fill it.  In addition, the conference center
will accommodate several "commuters" (participants who live locally or
arrange independent lodging).  Thus we anticipate that the total attendance
at the conference will be more than 100, possibly as high as 120.

PLEASE SEE CONFERENCE WEBSITE TO REGISTER FOR CONFERENCE AT:
http://www.wadsworth.org/rvbc/conference/index.htm








       Kim Friello
RVBC/NCRR
Wadsworth Center
Room D350
Albany, NY
(518) 402-5790