Activity

Current activity of the Polish Crystallographic Association

2016.

During the 58th Crystallographic Seminar, the Workshop of the Polish Crystallographic Association entitled “Electron crystallography in practice” has been organized jointly by a team of Silesian University: prof. Danuta Stróż, dr Krystian Prusik and dr Maciej Zubko together with colleagues from the Institute of Low Temperature and Structure Research (PAS):  prof. Leszek Kępiński and dr Małgorzata Małecka. Its popularity surpassed expectations – it gathered large number of young Polish crystallographers.
In this year the Association awarded its annual prize for the first time. The elected jury decided to honor dr. Damian Kucharczyk for his outstanding services to Polish crystallographic community (see ‘About us’ —> ‘Annual  prize of PCrA’ ). Honorary diploma went to prof. Adam Pietraszko for his long standing efforts to integrate Polish crystallographic community and establishing Wrocław and the Crystallographic Seminar as a gathering site of all Polish crystallographers.
During its General Meeting the Association elected new President- prof.  Marek Główka and new Board (see Society Board).

2015.
During the 57th Crystallographic Seminar, the Polish Crystallographic Association planned Scientific Session of PCA, this year aiming at reviewing the most interesting crystallographic achievements in Poland of the last few years. However the selected speakers were not all available during traditional Session scheduled for Friday 26th of June and the organizers decided to not separate Seminar and the Session and to include lectures planned for the Session throughout the Seminar. Traditional Workshop of the Polish Crystallographic Association this year was organized jointly with Rigaku Oxford Diffraction. This year it preceded the seminar on 24th of June. It was devoted to perfection of use of a popular crystallographic software CrysAlisPro. The workshop activities has been led by dr Mathias Meyer and Przemysław Stec (Rigaku Oxford Diffraction) with support from Grzegorz Próchniak, Marcin Grzeszczyk and Tadeusz Skarżyński. The Workshop has been met with great interest gathering more than 100 participants.
On Friday June 26th the Society members met on annual meeting establishing annual prize of the Polish Crystallographic Society for outstanding contribution to crystallography in Poland.

2014.
Following the established tradition, during 56th Crystallographic Seminar on Friday 28th the Polish Crystallographic Association has organized Scientific Session of PCA, this year entitled “Polish contribution to crystallography“. As the title indicates it had historic character reaching back to Renaissance period through XIX century recalling figures of Polish professors of Jagiellonian University, L.Zejszner and A.Alth – the authors of the first mineralogy textbook with elements of crystallography, and reaching XX century (lecturer prof.S.Hodorowicz). Scientific activity of professors J.Chojnacki (lecture by prof.B.Oleksyn), J.Auleytner (lecture by prof.W.Paszkowicz) and Z.Gałdecki (lecture by prof.M.Główka) has been reminded together with a recollection of the beginning of protein crystallography in Poland (lecture by prof.M.Jaskólski). Also contemporary achievements of Polish diaspora working in western crystallographic centers was briefly reviewed by prof.M.Jaskólski. Dr P.Tomaszewski reminded contribution to crystallography of prof. J.Czochralski offering also preview of a new movie devoted to Czochralski. Traditional Workshop of the Polish Crystallographic Association this year was devoted to “Structure solution from powder diffraction data”. The workshop has been organized by prof.W.Łasocha and his team from Chemistry Department of Jagiellonian University and from Institute of Catalysis PAS, Kraków.

2013.
Scientific Session of the Polish Crystallographic Association was held during the 55th Crystallographic Seminar on Friday 28th June 2013. The session entitled “Growth of single crystals and importance of crystals in scientific research” was devoted to a review of Polish research in a broad area of single crystal research. It was dedicated to Jan Czochralski in the proclaimed by Polish Parliament “2013- the Year of Jan Czochralski”. The session encompassed 8 lectures covering subjects like: laser structures based on GaN, crystallization from metal flux, crystallization in diamond-anvil cell, medical tear ferning test, x-ray topography etc. The Session was organized by prof.M.Wołcyrz and Z.Kaszkur. On Saturday 29th June 2013 the Workshop of the Polish Crystallographic Association was organized by prof. G.Bujacz, dr A.Bujacz and mgr A.Pietrzyk. The workshop was titled”Protein crystallization- the art or the craft?”. It addressed young protein and macromolecular crystallographers presenting principal techniques and clues for successful growth and phase separation.

2012.
During the 54th Crystallographic Seminar, on Friday 6th July 2012 at 16:00- 18.30 pm was held the Scientific Session of the Polish Crystallographic Association entitled”100th anniversary of the first diffraction experiment and its impact on crystallography”. The first part of the session had mostly historic character and was related to famous experiment proposed by Max (not yet von) Laue in 1912 as well as to his biography encompassing his school years in Poznań. Many anegdotal data was provided in presentations by prof. A.Więckowski and prof.M.Jaskólski. Prof. Więckowski after research in Poznan City Archives has found a school graduation certificate of young Max Laue. Dr P.Tomaszewski presented contribution to Polish crystallography by prof. J.Czochralski, who was one of the first Polish researchers publishing studies using diffraction of X-ray radiation. In the second part of the session, prof. R.Przeniosło (Physics Faculty, Warsaw University) presented contribution of Polish researchers to developement of the Time of Flight (TOF) method in neutronography as well as its current applications. Prof. M.Jaskólski presented principles and developement of “time-resolved Laue crystallography” techniqe. The organizer- dr hab. Zbigniew Kaszkur.
The Workshop of the Polish Crystallographic Association was organized by a team of prof. K.Woźniak (Chemistry Faculty Warsaw University- dr S.Domagała, dr R.Kamiński, dr K.Jarzembska) under the title “Experimental quantitative studies of electron density and application of pseudo-atom databases to electron density reconstruction in crystals”.

2011.
During the 53th Crystallographic Seminar on Friday 1st July 2011 at 16:00 – 19:00 pm was held the Scientific Session of the Polish Crystallographic Association. The session was entitled “Nanocrystallography. Methods of crystallography in studies of nanocrystal structure”. It was devoted to a review of nanocrystal research using crystallographic methods. Keeping in mind that the first crystallographic laws e.g. Steno’s law of constant angles (Steno,1669) as well as law of rational indices (Haüy, 1784) origined from methodic observations of outer faces of crystals, we decided to include to the scope of the session all the nanocrystal research based on microscopy (TEM). The organizer-dr hab. Zbigniew Kaszkur.
During the same event PCrA has organized a Workshop of the Polish Crystallographic Association entitled “Disorder in crystalline matter” (Saturday, 2nd July at. 9:00 – 13:00 pm). The workshop was organized and led by dr hab.eng. Jarosław Chojnacki from Faculty of Chemistry of Gdańsk Technical University as well as by prof. Adam Pietraszko and dr Anna Gągor from the Institute of Low Temperature and Structure Research (INTiBS PAN), Wrocław. The workshop was devoted to basic techniques used to model disorder in molecular structures and to refinement of such models.
Summer School of Crystallography – the conference organized by PCrA. The time and venue: 5-10th September 2011, Gierłoż near Kętrzyn (Polish Lake District- Mazury)- pension Moon Cottage (Księżycowy Dworek). The conference website :http://www.crystschool.eu is now not active. The last announcement (in Polish) about the school was published on our site as well as all the materials given in ‘conferences‘ section.
International Seminar on Inclusion Compounds – the conference organized by PCrA. The time and venue: 11-16th September 2011, Gierłoż near Kętrzyn- pension Moon Cottage (Księżycowy Dworek). The conference website http://www.isic13.eu is now not active. The contributing oral and poster presentation abstracts are published in the site section –> Conferences.

2010.
During the annual Crystallographic Seminar in Wrocław the Society has organized Discussion Panel entitled “Future of experimental crystallography”. The panel included talks presenting a commercial perspective- delivered by representatives of leading suppliers of crystallographic equipment as well as a general discussion moderated by prof. Janusz Lipkowski and Zbigniew Kaszkur. Among several contributions, the one delivered by prof. M.Jaskólski is available in the form of a manuscript inspired by the panel: “PROTEIN CRYSTALLOGRAPHY IN FUTURE TELLER CRYSTAL BALL” (in Polish).
Invited by the Society prof. Krzysztof Królas (Institute of Physics UJ, Kraków) delivered lecture “Current progress in Polish synchrotron project”.

1 thought on “Activity

  1. We are delighted to invite you to the upcoming “2nd International Conference on Crystallography, Spectroscopy, and Structural Chemistry” held on April 10-12, 2023 in Dubai, UAE.

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