Newsletter - December 2015

Callum Smith (IT Officer) joined a preliminary teleconference on 2nd November with representatives from Diamond Light Source (Instruct Centre UK), SOLIEL and Tassos Perrakis (iNEXT, NKI) to discuss synchrotron access through iNEXT, configuration of the portal & the proposal administration system which will be hosted by Instruct within ARIA.

Susan Daenke (Instruct Hub Coordinator) and Claudia Alen Amaro (Instruct Project Manager) participated in the Westlife teleconference on 3rd November which discussed initial project management issues.

The “UK ERIC information meeting” took place in London on the 11th of November. Susan Daenke and Claudia Alen Amaro participated. Harry Tuinder from the EC presented recent changes to the ERIC regulation and there was the opportunity to have a 1:1 discussion with Harry regarding Instruct issues.

Instruct hosted a poster and exhibition stand at the ‘BiomedBridges Final symposium: Open bridges for life science data’ on the 17th and 18th of November at the Wellcome Conference Centre in Hinxton, UK.

Lucia Banci (Instruct Italy) represented Instruct at the BMS RI Strategy Board meeting the 18th of November at the Wellcome Conference Centre in Hinxton, UK.

Jose Maria Carazo (Instruct Spain), Lucia Banci and Claudia Alen Amaro participated of the CORBEL kick off meeting at the Wellcome Conference Centre in Hinxton on the 18th and 19th November, UK.

The Instruct course: PATHOGENS SYMPOSIUM, was held on the 24th & 25th November 2015 at Diamond Light Source, Oxfordshire, UK.

The Instruct Centre UK hosted a meeting on the 27th of November at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics for everyone providing facilities to the Centre-UK. The meeting discussed standardisation of practises and the updates that are now available within the proposal process. Sarah Butcher from Finland was invited to attend the meeting to share plans for establishing a similar Centre in Finland.

Claudia Alen Amaro, Lorraine Gough (Finance officer, Instruct Hub) and Eva Fernandez Gonzalez (Administrative assistant, Instruct Hub) attended the UKRO hosted meeting ‘Managing EU projects’ and H2020 information updates, held on the 4th December in Oxford, UK.

Dave Stuart, Susan Daenke and Lorraine Gough were present for the Instruct Academic Services Ltd Board meeting held in Oxford, UK on the 9th December. The Board meeting was chaired in Dino Moras’ (Chairman of the Board) absence by the Director of Finance, Rob Williams.

Susan Daenke, Claudia Alen Amaro and Callum Smith met with Frank von Delft from SGC Oxford to discuss the provision of a new access platform for X-ray fragment screening (http://www.diamond.ac.uk/Beamlines/Mx/I04-1.html) at Diamond Light Source. The new platform will form part of the Instruct Centre-UK.

Lucia Banci, Susan Daenke, Callum Smith participated in a teleconference to discuss the WestLife Kick-off meeting to be held at Coseners House, Abingdon, UK on the 27-28th January 2016.

Upcoming events:


  • Teleconference of the Instruct Biennial Structural Biology Meeting 2017 Scientific Organising Committee (December 2015 tbc)
  • Teleconference iNEXT, 22nd December.
  • Instruct has been involved in organising a joint scientific workshop to establish formal collaborations between the UK and Uruguay structural biology communities. The initiative is aimed at securing long term relationships with Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina as specified in an MOU to be signed at the end of the workshop. The workshop is fully funded by the British Council and Instruct is leading the UK involvement. The workshops will be held in Montevideo on 16-19th February jointly with the Institut Pasteur (Montevideo). Applications for early stage researchers to attend are now open, but are open only to those resident in either the UK or Uruguay.

https://instruct-eric.eu/support/whats-on/news/integrative-methods-structural-biology-enhance-high-impact-research-health-and

More about these and other news at instruct-eric.eu or everyday on Twitter @Instructhub

The Instruct Hub will close for operational business from Monday 21st December through to 3rd January 2016.

During this period, the access proposal review process will be paused and resumed in the New Year. If you are experiencing any problems during this period, there may not be immediate support, so please wait until the start of 2016 when full service will resume.

Finally we wish you all happy holidays

and a great 2016!