News 2003

Taking photos with NMR (Dec 10, 2003) Have you a spare NMR machine? Now you can turn it into a (not so portable) camera! Professor Bing M. Fung and coworkers at the University of Oklahoma explain how this technique work. Read the paper through the sciencedirect.com site.

Version 1.0 of NMRShiftDB released (Nov 10, 2003) NMRShiftDB is a database that allows for searching for (sub-)spectra, (sub-)structures and other properties (chemical names, measurement conditions, keywords), and 13C spectrum prediction based on the database content. Currently, the database contains about 5300 structures and about 6000 assigned spectra. The database lives on http://www.nmrshiftdb.org and can be accessed via a web interface. The software and database content can be downloaded via http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/nmrshiftdb (Thanks to Dr. Christoph Steinbeck for the information).

XXXIV National Congress on Magnetic Resonance to be held in Sardinia (Nov 5, 2003) We are happy to announce that our XXXIV National Congress will be held in Tramariglio (about 22 Km from Alghero, Sardinia) at the Porto Conte Ricerche site from Sept 21 to 24, 2004. A preliminary web site for the congress is under construction and will be announced here as soon as it is ready.

Maybe we researchers are all criminals... (Oct 27, 2003) A nice article describes the reasons why scientific productvity fades with age. Apparently this behavior resembles that of criminals. In fact: "Crime and genius share something else in common: Marriage depresses both". If you are curious just read the original paper in the sciencedirect.com site.

RESONANTS E-Zine now on line (Oct 9, 2003). RESONANTS, a new Electronic Magazine devoted to NMR spectroscopy, is now on line in the SpectroscopyNOW.com site. A good site to keep an eye on...

NMR hits again! Nobel Prize 2003 for medicine and physiology awarded to magnetic resonance imaging scientists Lauterbur and Mansfield (Oct 6, 2003). After last year's Nobel prize to our distinguished collegue Kurt Wüthrich, also this year the Nobel prize has been awarded to scientists whose work deals with magnetic resonance. Read more in the official Nobel page and in the personal pages of Professor Paul C. Lauterbur and Professor Sir Peter Mansfield.

(Italian) Ancora borse di studio disponibili per la scuola di ESR (Ago 27, 2003). Il GIRSE (Gruppo Italiano Risonanza di Spin Elettronico) ci informa che sono a tutt'oggi disponibili ancora borse di studio per la partecipazione alla scuola nazionale "Fondamenti ed applicazioni della spettroscopia ESR". Gli interessati possono rivolgersi all'indirizzo e-mail barbon@chfi.unipd.it.

GIRM gold medal awarded to professor Spisni (Ago 1, 2003). The Gruppo Interdivisionale Risonanze Magnetiche (GIRM) of the Italian Chemical Society (SCI) has awarded this years's gold medal to our past-president, professor Alberto Spisni (University of Parma). Professor Spisni will receive the GIRM medal on Sept. 18, 2003, during the XXXIII Italian National Congress on Magnetic Resonance. On behalf of the GIDRM members we wish to convey to professor Spisni our warmest congratulations!

Jul 4, 2003. This message is in Italian. Il giorno 1 luglio 2003 al Palazzo Giustiniani del Senato in Roma sono stati assegnati i premi Sapio per la ricerca italiana 2003. Siamo lieti di comunicare che tra i premiati figurano ben due nostri soci che si sono distinti per le ricerche svolte nel campo NMR.
Il dott. Renzo Bazzo (IRBM, Pomezia, Roma) ha ricevuto il Premio Sapio NMR per le ricerche nel campo degli "Studi strutturali su enzimi virali (HCV, HIV) e relativi inibitori". La dott.ssa Silvia Bradamante (CNR, Milano) ha ricevuto il premio Sapio "Menzione Speciale" per lo "Sviluppo e utilizzo di metodologie di indagine spettroscopica NMR nel settore chimico, biomedico e biotecnologico".
Una più ampia descrizione delle motivazioni che hanno portato all'assegnazione di questi premi si trova qui. Ai nostri due colleghi le congratulazioni del GIDRM!

Jul 3, 2003. The registrations to our national congress are going well! As of yesterday we had 74 on-line registrations and 10 credit card payments. In addiction, we have already received more than 45 poster abstracts and 20 requests for grants. Of course we know that the GIDRM members like to submit their abstracts and applications AFTER the deadline is expired... nevertheless we ask all our collegues to hurry up!

May 11, 2003. Do you remember? Last year many of our members asked for the possibility of paying the congress fee by credit card. Well, today we are proud to announce that, after having carried out many tests, we have eventually decided to enable this kind of payment. Just answer "yes" to the "Do you want to pay with your credit card?" question in the on line registration form and click on the "Submit registration and pay by credit card" button in the preview page. You will be immediately redirected to the secure Internet server of our bank. Every payment will be confirmed by e-mail both by our bank and the GIDRM server. Although every effort has been made to ensure proper functioning of the procedure, please drop us an e-mail, should anything fail during the payment process.

Apr 13, 2003. Availability of a Ph.D. Student Position in Protein NMR in Ontario, Canada, McMaster University, Hamilton. A graduate student position is available in the group of Dr. Giuseppe Melacini at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The main focus of the laboratory is on bio-NMR, including both applications and method development. A 700 MHz NMR spectrometer is available for the research. Further information is available here. McMaster University is located 45' south of Toronto. Interested candidates are invited to contact: Assist. Prof. Giuseppe Melacini.

Mar 23, 2003. This message is in Italian. La Sapio ci informa che il giorno 10 Maggio 2003, presso il CERM dell'Università degli Studi di Firenze (Via Luigi Sacconi 6, Sesto Fiorentino), nel corso degli incontri tematici 2003, avrà luogo la giornata di studio "Premio Sapio 2003" per la tecnica NMR. Ulteriori informazioni al sito www.premiosapio.it.

Mar 10, 2003. Yes! Finally we have a new page for the on-line registration to our 2003 National Congress. The collegues that would like to register are kindly requested to use the on-line form in this page. Of course, we welcome your comments!

Feb 13, 2003. The organizers of the 10th Chianti Workshop on Magnetic Resonance informed us that only a few places are still available at the Centro Studi "I Cappuccini" in San Miniato. The collegues who intend to book the accommodation C/O "I Cappuccini" please hurry up.

Feb 5, 2003. Prof. Dr. Jesús Jiménez-Barbero sent us the following job offer. Please contact him directly.
A Postdoctoral Research Fellowship is available at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) in the group of Prof. Jiménez-Barbero (Center for Biological Research), funded through an EU "Human Potential" Network
STRUCTURE AND CONFORMATION OF CARBOHYDRATES AND GLYCOMIMETICS AND STUDY OF THEIR INTERACTIONS WITH CARBOHYDRATE-BINDING PROTEINS
The group in Madrid will use NMR and Molecular modelling techniques in order to understand the structure, conformational properties and molecular recognition features of natural ligands and glycomimetics. Experience in NMR and/or modelling is desired but not required. Expertise in synthesis or biochemistry or molecular biology is also appreciated.
The project will provide an opportunity to do research in a highly interdisciplinary context enhanced by the connections with the other Network partners. The CSIC provides excellent facilities for the work, including 500, 600 and 800 MHz spectrometers.
The appointment can be made for one or two years. The starting date is negotiable, but should preferably be along 2003. The salary will be negotiated according to qualification. Candidates must be nationals of an EU country (excluding Spain), or of an "associated state", or have resided in an EU Member State for at least five years immediately prior to their appointment.They must be 35 years old or less at their date of appointment. They must not have worked in Spain for more than 12 of the 24 months prior to their appointment.

Jan 7, 2003. Breaking news! Our XXXIII National Congress on Magnetic Resonance will be held in Bressanone (Italy) from the morning of September 17 to Sept. 19 evening. We are preparing a web page for the preliminary registration. Stay tuned...

Jan 3, 2003. OK, ok, these pages do not render well with old browsers that do not correctly interpret the CSS cascading style sheets. We are aware that there are programming techniques that take the capabilities of each different browser into account and change the HTML code accordingly...but we are not HTML (nor JavaScript) programmers and days only have 24 hours, so please, PLEASE UPDATE your browser to a more recent version! It's free!

Jan 1, 2003. Well, we're back! First of all, we are proud to announce to the GIDRM members that we finally own the gidrm.org domain! From now on, connect to us via the new address www.gidrm.org. After several months this site has been rewritten with the hope that it can be more useful than before. We have added a section listing the magnetic resonance congresses in the world (or at least the ones we are aware of...). Please, drop us an e-mail should some of the information in the congresses section be wrong or outdated. We also plan to add a section with links to NMR/EPR/MRI software, freely available papers and tutorials. Finally, we are preparing a section with the history of the GIDRM and we ask all our members to help us by providing pictures, photographs, old GIDRM booklets and whatever else could be useful for describing our history and activities. We wait for your contributions...