This issue 4 of Crystallography Reviews presents a topical review, a full review and several book reviews.
The topical review is by Matthew Bowler of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Grenoble Outstation and Unit for Virus Host Cell Interactions, Univ. Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS along with Olof Svensson and Didier Nurizzo of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble and is entitled ‘Fully automatic macromolecular crystallography: the impact of MASSIF-1 on the optimum acquisition and quality of data’. This topical review has already been downloaded more than 1100 times! It involves the use of a sample mounting robotic system. This has greatly improved the throughput of firstly testing of crystals for which one diffracts the best. Then, as the X-ray beam intensities have got stronger and stronger the time spent collecting each dataset is now very short (fractions of a second versus hours when I started out at my national synchrotron, the SRS), so that a robot changing a sample is much faster than I was doing the step manually. Also, overall, robots do not get tired and can work round the clock! The MASSIF-1 at ESRF is a very impressive system.
The full review is by Phil Fanwick of the Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, USA, and is entitled: ‘Small molecule crystallography past, present, and future: a career long review of chemical crystallography’. This review provides an incisive and highly experienced evaluation of the current state of small molecule crystallography using the author’s education and experiences as an example. It deals with the history of crystallography over the last 50 years and suggests areas of improvement for the future. Structure validation and publication of crystallographic data is highlighted along with implications for crystallographic education. There are interesting, side by side, comparisons made with macromolecular crystallography.
The book reviews in this issue are:
Giovanni Ferraris, of the Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Universitá di Torino, Italy, reviews Highlights in mineralogical crystallography, edited by Th. Armbruster and R.M. Danisi, published by De Gruyter in 2015.
Zygmunt Derewenda, of the School of Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA, reviews The discreet charm of protein binding sites, by Joseph Yariv, published by Springer in 2015.
M. Vijayan, of the Molecular Biophysics Unit, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, reviews Structural glycobiology, edited by Elizabeth Yuriev and Paul A. Ramsland, published by CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group in 2012.
Anders Liljas, of the Biochemistry and Structural Biology Department, Lund University, Sweden, reviews Perspectives in crystallography, by John R. Helliwell, published by CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group in 2015.
Anders Liljas, of the Biochemistry and Structural Biology Department, Lund University, Sweden, also reviews Snow, ice and other wonders of water. A tribute to the hydrogen bond, by Ivar Olovsson, published by World Scientific in 2016.
Tim Gruene, of the Paul Scherrer Institut Biology and Chemistry Department, Switzerland, reviews the second edition of Modern X–ray analysis on single crystals – a practical guide, 2nd edition, by Peter Luger, published by de Gruyter.
Willem J.P. van Enckevort, of the Institute for Molecules and Materials Laboratory of Solid State chemistry, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands, reviews Introduction to crystal growth and characterization, by Klaus-Werner Benz and Wolfgang Neumann, published by Wiley-VCH Verlag.
Gaston Garcia, of the Spanish Synchrotron Radiation Source ‘ALBA’ in Barcelona, Spain, reviews Synchrotron radiation: basics, methods and applications, by S. Mobilio, F. Boscherini and C. Meneghini, published by Springer Verlag.
Alessia Bacchi, of the Dipartimento di Chimica Generale ed Inorganica, Chimica Analitica, Chimica Fisica, Università di Parma, Italy, reviews Crystallography – a very short introduction, by Mike Glazer, published by Oxford University Press.
Jon Wright, of the ESRF, Grenoble, France, reviews X-ray crystallography, by Gregory S. Girolami, published by University Science Books, Mill Valley, California.
As ever we welcome new ideas for review articles; please contact me at the e-mail address below.