I absolutely agree with Juergen. Leaving aside methods developers, who are a completely different breed, there is no such thing as a "crystallographer" sitting in a dark room solving structures all day. If there are, these are anachronisms destined for evolutionary demise.
More and more cell biologists, immunologists and all other kinds of biologists are having a go at doing structural work with their molecules of interest themselves without involving the "professionals". Typically, they learn on the job and they need advice with all kinds of things ranging from cloning and protein preps through to issues with tetartohedrally-twinned data and interpreting their structures. So, a modern structural biologist is one who is equipped for the wet lab and has some idea of how to go about solving structures. CCP4BB is a wonderful resource that is great for both the quality of the advice offered to those that seek it and for the variety of topics that are addressed in the scope of structural biology. I have learnt greatly from reading posts from very skilled and knowledgeable scientists at this forum and then implemented these insights into my own research. I am very grateful for this. In short, please do not discourage your colleagues, particularly very junior ones, from posting to the CCP4BB. Some of the questions may appear quaint or irrelevant but it is easy to simply ignore topics that are of no interest! Eugene On 13 February 2014 14:41, Bosch, Juergen <jubo...@jhsph.edu> wrote: > Let me pick up Eleanor's comment: > is there something like a crystallographer today ? I mean in the true > sense ? > I think as a "crystallographer" you won't be able to survive the next > decade, you need to diversify your toolset of techniques as pointed out in > this article > http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7485-711a > > And I'm not quite sure how software developers see themselves, as I would > argue they are typically maybe not doing so much wet lab stuff related to > crystallography (I may be wrong here) but rather code these days. > > What "type" of crystallographer is a software developer ? > > I think like our beloved crystals "we" come in different flavors. And we > need to train the next generation of students with that perspective in mind. > > Just my two cents on a snowy day (>30cm over night) > > Jürgen > ...................... > Jürgen Bosch > Johns Hopkins University > Bloomberg School of Public Health > Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology > Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute > 615 North Wolfe Street, W8708 > Baltimore, MD 21205 > Office: +1-410-614-4742 > Lab: +1-410-614-4894 > Fax: +1-410-955-2926 > http://lupo.jhsph.edu > > On Feb 13, 2014, at 6:41 AM, Eleanor Dodson <eleanor.dod...@york.ac.uk> > wrote: > > I agree with Frank - it keeps crystallographers modest to know how > challenging wet lab stuff still is.. > Eleanor > > On 12 February 2014 19:23, Robbie Joosten <robbie_joos...@hotmail.com> > wrote: > > It's not an e-mail bulletin board, but Researchgate seems to be quite > popular for wet lab questions. IMO the Q&A section of the social network is > a bit messy. That said, the quality seems to improve gradually. > > Cheers, > Robbie > > Sent from my Windows Phone > ________________________________ > Van: Paul Emsley > Verzonden: 12-2-2014 19:23 > Aan: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK > Onderwerp: Re: [ccp4bb] Sister CCPs > > > On 12/02/14 15:59, George Sheldrick wrote: > > It would be so nice to have a 'sister CCP' for questions aboud wet-lab > problems that have nothing to do with CCP4 or crystallographic > computing, The is clearly a big need for it, and those of us who try > to keep out of wet-labs would not have to wade though it all. > > > > FWIW, the remit of CCP4BB, held at jiscmail-central, is describes as: > > /The CCP4BB mailing list is for discussions on the use of the CCP4 > suite, and macromolecular crystallography in general./ > > > > Thus wet-lab questions are not off-topic (not that anyone recently > described them as such). > > Having said that, Jiscmail mailing lists are easy to set-up (providing > that you can reasonably expect that the mailing list will improve > knowledge sharing within the UK centered academic community) and > relatively low maintenance. I, for one, would not be entirely unhappy to > miss out on questions about lysis. > > Paul. > > > -- Dr Eugene Valkov Room 3N049 Division of Structural Studies MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Francis Crick Avenue Cambridge Biomedical Campus Cambridge CB2 0QH, U.K. Email: eval...@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0) 1223 267358
