(From the workshop description) Small angle X-ray and neutron scattering (SAXS/SANS, or SAS) has experienced dramatic growth over the past fifteen years within the structural biology community, emerging as an important and versatile analytical technique for the study of the structure and function of biological macromolecules in solution. This workshop is a concise introduction to biological small angle solution scattering, with an emphasis on practical application: knowing how to judge data quality, how to troubleshoot during data collection, the fundamentals of data analysis, and the expectations for a successful experiment and acceptable publication.
The workshop includes both lectures and hands-on practical exercises from leading experts. Participants will also learn about aspects of home laboratory data collection, important complementary biophysical techniques for validating your SAXS data, and will be introduced to experiments at national user facilities (synchrotrons and research reactors). Workshop topics include, but are not limited to:
The basic principles of SAXS
- Critical sample preparation, data collection, and data evaluation procedures
- Standard model free analysis methods including obtaining the radius of gyration, molecular weight, and P(r) function
- Common model-based analysis including bead model reconstructions
- Hands-on tutorials with several common software packages for data analysis
Gillilan says that online conferences clearly have some advantages during this time. “I miss the onsite meetings for the after-hours, for meeting people in an informal atmosphere,” he says. “But we did have bigger participation for the workshop, even though some of them had to stay up a little later,” he adds about the bigger fraction of international users attending the workshop.