Sponsoring SIG(s): Best Practices, SAS, MNP, Industrial, Light Sources

Session Chairs: Daniel Olds, Emre Brookes & Debanu Das

The rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are revolutionizing various scientific domains, including materials science, chemistry, physics, biology, and others. This session aims to explore how AI and ML techniques can be utilized in structural science in applications ranging from data analysis, structure determination, structure-based drug discovery and materials characterization to facility operation and sample throughput.
Submissions from all areas of structural science are welcome and could discuss challenges in AI/ML integration, present novel algorithms, or offer solutions for specific situations. Part 1 will focus on AI/ML applications to materials systems while Part 2 will focus on AI/ML applications to biological systems.

Sponsoring SIG(s): Small Molecule

Co-Sponsoring SIG(s): Industrial

Session Chairs: Justin Newman & Luca Iuzzolino

Understanding the various properties of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), including but not limited to physical, chemical, thermodynamic, kinetic, spectroscopic, mechanical, and surface properties, is of utmost importance to ensure a robust and reliable manufacture of small molecule drug products. This session aims to explore the ways that structure elucidation can impact our understanding of solid state properties and how they influence the manufacture of a robust drug product. Potential topics for this session could include drug substance form selection, properties (chemical or physical), polymorphism, and how these can potentially impact the design of a final drug product.

Sponsoring SIG(s): General Interest

Co-Sponsoring SIG(s): Small Molecule, Best Practices

Session Chairs: Joe Tanski, Yinka Olatunji-Ojo &  Susanna Huang

This session is focused on how to effectively engage students at any level with crystallography in teaching, outreach and research. Specific topics may include student training and mentoring, pedagogy and building crystallography teaching infrastructure, strategies for faculty professional success in research involving crystallography, effective involvement of students at synchrotron facilities, outreach programs to attract the interest of students to crystallography and structural biology, approaches towards instrument acquisition and maintaining resources for engaging students with crystallography.

Sponsoring SIG(s): MicroED

Co-Sponsoring SIG(s): Biological Macromolecules

Session Chairs: Michael Martynowycz & Johan Hattne

Building on the interplay between cutting-edge electron microscopy and minuscule crystal sizes, Microcrystal Electron Diffraction (MicroED) has become an indispensable tool for high-resolution structure determination of biological macromolecules and drug discovery. This session delves into unveiling newly determined macromolecular and new pharmaceutical structures facilitated by MicroED. Attendees will gain insights into the capabilities and future directions of MicroED in solving complex biological structures, from advances in data collection and processing to tackling previously intractable problems in structural biology and drug discovery. 

Sponsoring SIG(s): Small Angle Scattering

Co-Sponsoring SIG(s): BioMac

Session Chairs: Robert Monsen & Alexander Yarawsky

This session will showcase recent advancements in leveraging small-angle scattering (SAS) data in combination with orthogonal biophysical, biochemical, and computational methods to elucidate complex biological structures that are challenging for traditional approaches like X-ray diffraction, NMR, or cryo-EM. The examples will include, but are not limited to, studies on higher-order molecular assemblies, their structures, and dynamics. The focus will be on how these integrative models enhance our understanding of the spatio-temporal environment of the human cell.

Sponsoring SIG(s): Materials

Co-Sponsoring SIG(s): Neutrons, Powder

Session Chairs: Athena Chen & Hao Liu

Structural characterizations of the next-generation energy materials are crucial for establishing precise relationships between chemistry, synthesis procedures, performance, and stability. This session invites works that apply in-depth structural characterizations on emerging energy materials for applications such as batteries, fuel cells, photovoltaics, thermoelectrics, piezoelectric devices, etc. Submissions may be steady-state or time-resolved structural studies of crystalline or amorphous energy materials, to understand the phase evolution during synthesis, structure-property relationships, degradation mechanisms, and other related aspects.