FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Chicago Council on Science and Technology presents “The Order of Crystallography”

CHICAGO, Illinois (January 13, 2014) Crystallography, or the science of how matter is arranged, has been around for a long time—the birth of X-ray crystallography was 100 years ago.  Using the science of visualizing molecules in 3D has helped society build everything from better medicines to stronger materials. Despite huge advances in the field, and advantages to society, most folks remain unaware of the implications to materials engineering and on research methods today. UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) has named 2014 the International Year of Crystallography. Help Chicago Council on Science and Technology celebrate crystallography’s place in our lives—and in Chicago.

Chicago Council on Science and Technology (C2ST) is pleased to present “The Order of Crystallography,” on Wednesday, Jan. 22. The program will feature Dr. Keith Moffat, senior advisor in the life sciences to the director of the Advance Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory, and Dr. John Kallend, Professor of Materials Engineering, at Illinois Institute of Technology.

This talk will cover some of the influential discoveries that resulted from crystallographic analysis, examine products ranging from beverage cans to turbine engines, and take a look toward 21^st century advancements, particularly with an eye toward energy efficiency. The program will also address applications of crystallography and materials research emerging from the Advance Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory for a variety of industrial uses and 21st Century products.

The APS, located at Argonne in suburban Lemont, is the Western Hemisphere’s most powerful source of x-rays for research. It attracts more than 4,000 users from academia, industry, and government laboratories around the world each year for research in all fields of science.

Moffat, the Louis Block Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at the University of Chicago, heads an NIH-funded sector that serves as a national facility for time-resolved X-ray scattering applied to scientific problems in structural biology, materials science, chemistry and physics.  His research interests focus on time-resolved X-ray crystallography, signaling photoreceptors and optogenetics.

Kallend is a professor of materials science and engineering, physics, and associate dean of engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology. His research interests have included diffraction studies on lattice orientation distributions in polycrystalline metals, ceramics and rocks, polycrystalline plasticity theory, and anisotropic properties of crystalline materials.

Crystallography, along with its extensions, has been used not only for advancing basic scientific knowledge—with Nobel prizes in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology and Medicine awarded to its practitioners—but also in developing important products that have influenced the lives of people worldwide.

Details:  Northwestern University, 303 E Superior, Hughes Auditorium. Social hour and registration at 5pm, presentation begins at 6pm. Discounted parking will be made available to the first 50 attendees at the 222 E. Huron St. garage; ask for a ticket at the registration desk upon arrival to the program.

C2ST members free/ Students $5.00 / Non-member $20.00 Register at: http://chicagocouncilonscienceandtechnology.shuttlepod.org/Default.aspx?pageId=353495&eventId=792324&EventViewMode=EventDetails

THIS PROGRAM WILL ALSO BE LIVE STREAMED. Tune in on January 22nd at 6pm CST http://www.livestream.com/c2st