SPring-8, the large synchrotron radiation facility

The 8th International Conference on Biology and Synchrotron Radiation, BSR2004, will be held at the Egret Himeji, Himeji, Hyogo, Japan, from 7th to 11th September. On behalf of the organizing committee, I have the pleasure of cordially inviting you to participate in the conference.

This conference had traditionally covered applications of synchrotron radiation to problems in biophysics, under the name of "Biophysics and SR". In the last meeting in 2001, it was changed to "Biology and SR" to place greater emphasis on addressing the biological problems which can be tackled by the various physical techniques using the special characteristics of Synchrotron Radiation.

We follow this approach in the BSR2004 conference and also try to emphasize the versatility of Synchrotron Radiation in solving biological problems. As in the last conferences, there will be no parallel sessions and significant weight will be given to poster presentations.

I hope you can join us in this stimulating and enjoyable conference.

BSR2004 Organizing Committee
Chair: Tomitake Tsukihara

Topics will include all biological applications of SR.

Special Lectures will be given by

 J Deisenhofer (University of Texas, USA)
 K Moffat (University of Chicago, USA)
 F A Dilmanian (Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA)
 C Toyoshima (University of Tokyo, Japan)

There will be ten mini-symposia.

1 Membrane Protein Structures
Speakers: D-N Wang (USA), Y Jiang (USA), S Murakami (Japan), A Nakagawa (Japan)
2 Structural Studies of Enveloped Viruses
Speakers: T Dokland (USA), Y Modis (USA), FA Rey (France), MG Rossmann (USA)
3 Research on Low Dose Radiation Effects
Speakers: K Kobayashi (Japan), Y Kobayashi (Japan), H Matsumoto (Japan), P O'Neil (UK), K Prise (UK)
4 Time-resolved Protein Crystallography
Speakers: S-I Adachi (Japan), P Anfinrud (USA), T Kouyama (Japan), K Kuehnel (Germany)
5 Small-angle Scattering
Speakers: RF Fischetti (USA), G Grossmann (UK), H Kamikubo (Japan), T Oka (Japan), Y Sugimoto (Japan)
6 X-ray Microscopy
Speakers: J Miao (USA), G Schneider (Germany), Y Terada (Japan), Y Yamamoto (Japan)
7 Medical Applications
Speakers: A Bravin (France), D Dreossi (Italy), K Hyodo (Japan), T Sera (Japan), J Wu (Japan)
8 Pharmaceutical Hot Topics
Speakers: M Allaire (USA), T Shiba (Japan), T Terwilliger (USA), K Yoshimura (Japan), M Yoshimura (Japan)
9 XAFS and CD
Speakers: I Ascone (France), K Gekko (Japan), GR Jones (UK), A Kikuchi (Japan), RA Scott (USA)
10 New Phasing/Beamline Techniques for Protein Crystallography
Speakers: R Fourme (France), V Lamzin (Germany), RBG Ravelli (France), M Soltis (USA)