*The First African Structural Biology Conference*
*Macromolecular Structure, Health and Biotechnology in Developing Countries*
The Wilderness, Western Cape, South Africa
24-27 October 2006
The First African Structural Biology (FASB) conference will be held in
The Wilderness, South Africa. Structural Biology is fundamental to
rational drug design and central to the drug discovery process. The
conference will focus on the contributions and potential contributions
of Structural Biology to science in Africa with some emphasis on
biotechnology and health.
In particular, the conference has the following aims:
1. To promote structural biology in Africa, particularly in South Africa
2. To discuss contributions to the relief of disease, especially, TB,
AIDS and malaria that have been made through an understanding of
macromolecular structure
3. To provide the opportunity for South African students and
scientists to meet and interact with some of the leading Structural
Biologists in several fields that are relevant to our continent
4. To explore the merit and practicality of studying macromolecular
structure in Africa
5. To discuss strategic and funding policies for structural biology
and benchmark South Africa against other developing countries, notably
Brazil and India
6. To identify projects of interest to the South African community in
which structural analysis could play a role.
We are fortunate in having a number of speakers who have been successful
in this area and who have applied their minds to the diseases of the
developing world.
Expression of interest and registration forms can be submitted online by
visiting our website:
http://sbio.uct.ac.za/conference
*PROGRAMME*
*Tuesday 24 October 2006*
2:00 pm Dr P Mjwara /(Department of Science and Technology, South
Africa).
3:00 pm Prof Sir Tom Blundell, FRS /(University of Cambridge, UK).
Structural Biology and Modern Drug Discovery.
4:00 pm Tea
4:20 pm Prof Wieland Gevers/ (ASSAf, South Africa)
Introduction of ASSAf Speaker Joachim Frank
4:30 pm ASSAf Lecture: Dr Joachim Frank /(Howard Hughes Medical
Institute, USA).
The Ribosome in Motion as seen by Cryo-EM.
5:30 pm Prof Iain Campbell, FRS /(University of Oxford, UK).
The role of NMR in structural biology and drug discovery.
6:30 pm Dinner
7:30 pm Poster Session
*Wednesday 25 October 2006*
8:00 am Dr Gert Vriend /(University of Nijmegen, Holland).
Protein Modelling.
9:00 am Dr Steve Bryant/ (NCBI, USA).
Protein Classification Methods for NCBI's Conserved Domain
Database.
10:00 am Dr Frank Von Delft (/Structural Genomics Consortium, Oxford UK).
10:30 am Tea
11:00 am Prof Christian Sommerhoff /(University of Munich, Germany).
Parasite-derived Inhibitors of Mast Cell Proteases:
Templates for Drug Development.
12:00 pm Prof Ravi Acharya /(University of Bath, UK).
Structure based design of new ACE inhibitors through Cape
Town (South Africa) - Bath (UK) link.
1:00 pm Lunch
2:30 pm Dr Rolf Boelens /(University Utrecht, Netherlands)
3:30 pm Bruker Lecture: Dr Rudiger Weisemann /(Bruker, Germany)
NMR Spectroscopic Studies of Protein/Ligand interactions.
4:00 pm Tea
4:20 pm Dr Pugh David /(University of Western Cape, South Africa)
Solution structure of the RING finger domain from the human
RBBP6 splicing-associated protein.
4:40 pm Contributed Papers
5:00 pm Contributed Papers
6:30 pm Dinner
7:30 pm Posters
*Thursday 26 October 2006*
8:00 am Prof James Sacchettini /(Texas A&M University, USA).
Combining Structural Genomics and Drug Discovery to Develop
New TB Drugs.
9:00 am Dr Peter Kwong/ (National Institute of Health, USA).
Structural Biology and an Effective HIV-1 Vaccine
10:00 am Dr Alan Roseman /(MRC LMB, Cambridge, UK).
10:30 am Tea
11:00 am Prof David Rice /(University of Sheffield, UK).
From drugs to herbicides: the impact of structural biology
on rational design.
12:00 pm Prof Krishna Murthy /(The University of Alabama, USA).
Insights into Function from Structural Studies on Complement
Components and VCP
1:00 pm Lunch
2:30 pm Canoeing on the Wilderness Lagoon sponsored by Rigaku MSC
6:30 pm Gala Dinner
7:30 pm Posters
*Friday 27 October 2006(
8:00 am Dr Jonathan Spencer /(University of Cambridge, UK).
Structural studies on biosynthetic enzymes
9:00 am Prof Andreas Hoenger /(University of Colorado at Boulder,
USA).
Structural Investigations into the Interaction between
Microtubules and Mal3p, an/ S.pombe/ Homologue of EB1.
10:00 am Contributed papers
10:30 am Tea
11:00 am EMBO Lecture: Prof Helen Saibil, FRS /(University of London, UK)
One Sequence, Two Structures: protein conformational changes
that cause disease.
12:00 pm Prof Edward Egelman /(University of Virginia, USA).
Order, Disorder and Heterogeneity in Helical Polymers.
1:00 pm Lunch
2:30 pm Prof Igor Polikarpov /(University of Sao Paulo, Brazil).
Structural Studies of HIV Proteases of Subtype B and F and
their Mutants.
3:30 pm Prof Mamannamana Vijayan /(Indian Institute of Science,
India).
Structural biology of Mycobacterial Proteins the Indian
Scenario.
4:00 pm Tea
4:20 pm Dr Michael Lawrence /(CSIRO, Australia).
4:40 pm Dr Bethuel Sehlapelo /(Department of Science and
Technology, South Africa).
5:00 pm Discussion
6:30 pm Dinner
7:30 pm Posters
*Conference Organizer:*
Trevor Sewell
Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine
Wolfson Pavilion, Level 3
Faculty of Health Sciences
University of Cape Town
Anzio Road
Observatory, 7925
South Africa Tel.: +27-21-6502817
Fax: +27-21-6891528
E-mail: sewell at uctvms.uct.ac.za
