Schedule

Structural Chemistry
Keynote

Biological Macromolecules
Keynote

Small-Angle Scattering
Keynote

Co-Chairs: Ashwin Chari & Janet Smith Sponsoring Commission: Biological Macromolecules This microsymposium will highlight 21st-century approaches to structural enzymology, showcasing how high-resolution crystallography, neutron diffraction, high-resolution cryo-EM, and integrative and computational methods are being applied to elucidate enzyme mechanisms and functions. It will also include topics on protein flexibility and dynamics, emphasizing how conformational changes, dynamic behavior, and structural adaptability contribute to enzymatic activity. By bringing together diverse experimental and computational perspectives, the session will illustrate how modern structural biology is advancing our understanding of enzyme function in unprecedented detail.

Biological Macromolecules

Co-Chairs: Hong Zhou & Fasseli Coulibaly Sponsoring Commission: Biological Macromolecules Understanding disease mechanisms at a structural level is crucial for developing targeted therapies. Structural insights involve understanding how molecular structures, especially proteins, nucleic acids, and small molecules, contribute to the development and progression of diseases. This microsymposium will include topics such as protein misfolding and aggregation, mutations and structural defects, cancer-related structural changes, and virology.

Biological Macromolecules

Co-Chairs: Oksana Zaharko & Qihang Lu Sponsoring Commission: Magnetic Structures Co-Sponsoring Commission: COMCIFS Supporting Commission: Crystallographic Nomenclature and the International Tables Magnetic symmetry analysis is an essential tool for characterizing magnetic materials. This microsymposium will focus on the theory and applications of magnetic symmetry, with particular emphasis on spin groups in both space and point groups. These groups have recently reemerged as fundamental tools for crystallographic characterization of magnetic structures. They are also used to resolve phenomena in magnetic materials independent of the coupling of spin and lattice degrees of freedom, such as in the case of altermagnetism. Invited talks will present recent advances in the theory and applications of spin groups, and contributions on any studies where magnetic symmetry plays a fundamental role are also welcome.

Crystallographic Nomenclature
Magnetic Structures
COMCIFS

Co-Chairs: Uwe Müller & Daren Fearon Sponsoring Commission: Crystallographic Computing Co-Sponsoring Commission: Biological Macromolecules Supporting Commission: Synchrotron and XFEL Radiation The automation of structure determination pipelines has revolutionized crystallography by streamlining the process from data collection to refinement. Advances in computing and artificial intelligence have enabled the development of sophisticated algorithms that automate critical tasks such as data processing, phasing, model building, and refinement, significantly reducing human intervention and improving throughput. These automated pipelines provide real-time feedback during data collection, allowing researchers to make informed decisions, optimize experimental parameters, and ensure high-quality data acquisition. Case studies demonstrate the effectiveness of these systems in various experimental settings, highlighting improvements in data accuracy, reproducibility, and efficiency. The integration of machine learning and cloud-based solutions further enhances the adaptability and scalability of these pipelines, making them accessible to a wider research community. This microsymposium will discuss the latest innovations in automated structure determination, fragment screening, the challenges associated with automation, and future prospects for fully autonomous crystallographic workflows.

Biological Macromolecules
Crystallographic Computing
Synchrotron and XFEL Radiation

Co-Chairs: Brijith Thomas & Rachel W. Martin Sponsoring Commission: NMR Crystallography and Related Methods Co-Sponsoring Commission: Structural Chemistry Supporting Commission: Quantum Crystallography There have been considerable advances in using NMR parameters for the development of novel structural tools for advanced materials. Machine learning approaches (for example, SHIFT-ML), novel crystal-structure prediction tools (QNMRX-CSP, NMR-CSP combined methods for highly flexible molecules), DFT-based approaches, and combined MD/NMR methods have been used extensively to provide unique insights into the structure and dynamics of different classes of materials, from molecular pharmaceutical solids to open-framework materials, functional oxides, and energy materials. This microsymposium will focus on highlighting these advances with the aim of making them better known to non-NMR audiences in academia and industry. In addition, there is considerable interest in the characterization of amorphous solids and other complex materials for which diffraction-based methods struggle to deliver vital atomic-level information.

NMR Crystallography and Related Methods
Quantum Crystallography
Structural Chemistry

Co-Chairs: Aline Ribeiro Passos & Megan Landberg Sponsoring Commission: Small Angle Scattering This microsymposium will highlight cutting-edge research in coherent-based techniques such as XPCS and phase-contrast imaging methods, including CDI, ptychography, holography, and BraggCDI, with applications across biology, materials science, and physics. Discussions will also cover technical developments such as operando studies, sample environments, fast detectors, and advanced algorithms needed to leverage the unique capabilities of diffraction-limited storage rings. By addressing emerging challenges and fostering collaboration, this microsymposium aims to drive progress in the field of coherent and phase-contrast imaging.

Small-Angle Scattering

Co-Chairs: John Helliwell & Bridget Murphy Sponsoring Commission: CommDat Open science is a force for good and an enabler of research, irrespective of economics or politics. It is by definition a global endeavor and is driven by open data. For open science to thrive, open data needs to be produced, managed, and made available in a coordinated manner. However, this coordination requires funding and political will, and fortunately these are now beginning to come to pass. Large-scale initiatives are now producing systems to facilitate and coordinate open data, typically funded by national or regional organizations. There is some general coordination of these initiatives through global organizations such as CODATA; however, it is also imperative to coordinate at a disciplinary level, and this microsymposium is intended to foster these connections. This is a general topic applicable to all commissions generating open data. In practice, the open science movement follows the guideline “as open as possible, as closed as necessary” to protect, for example, endangered species and their locations, and it is feasible to envisage other such situations. Intellectual property rights can also apply, for instance in the case of patents and industry.

CommDat

Co-Chairs: Elena Simone & Marijana Dakovic Sponsoring Commission: Structural Chemistry The design of crystalline particles is challenging in many fields such as pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and pigments, since properties like flowability, tabletability, wettability, and solubility are crucial for the development of solid materials. Proper engineering of crystalline particles through crystallization is essential to address manufacturing issues. Understanding the interrelationships among structure, property, performance, and processing can guide research and provide engineering solutions. This microsymposium will highlight the role of structural chemistry, crystallography, and crystal engineering in providing tools to understand particle behavior at the scale of interactions and morphology, as well as surface characteristics and how these translate into particle properties.

Structural Chemistry

Co-Chairs: Arthur H Liu & Jean Marie Polli Sponsoring Commission: High Pressure Co-Sponsoring Commission: Crystallography of Materials Advanced large-area hybrid pixel photon-counting detectors enable high signal-to-noise ratio, high speed, and efficiency in photon detection for various synchrotron and laboratory applications. This provides opportunities to advance photon science, including X-ray diffraction and crystallography, scattering, spectroscopy, and imaging. This microsymposium will highlight efforts aimed at extending the photon detection range from lower energies through active sensors and to higher energies with high-Z materials, with special focus on potential improvements for synchrotron and other lab-based demands. New methods to reduce effective pixel size, minimize stacking, and improve energy resolution through intelligent pixel processing will be discussed. Other emerging development trends include increasing frame rates through higher-bandwidth readouts, improving hybridization processes to reduce gaps, and employing high-throughput, low-delay embedded AI and machine learning to improve real-time frame quality. Recent progress in real use cases will be emphasized.

Crystallography of Materials
High Pressure

Co-Chairs: Leopoldo Suescun & Daniel Widdowson Sponsoring Commission: Mathematical and Theoretical Crystallography Co-Sponsoring Commission: Magnetic Structures The integration of multimedia, online resources, and interactive tools in classrooms provides students with the flexibility to access materials at their own pace and convenience, thereby enhancing their learning experience. In crystallography, a wide variety of free resources such as websites, interactive applets, databases, and programs can be implemented in courses, ranging from symmetry visualization tools to advanced programs for determining crystal structures. Many of these resources are also used by scientists in their research, offering students valuable insights into the tools and technologies commonly employed in the field. This microsymposium will explore how these tools can be applied to teaching crystallography across different academic levels and curricula.

Magnetic Structures
Mathematical and Theoretical Crystallography

Organizers: Santosh Panjikar & Martin Lutz The Software Fayre at the 27th IUCr Congress (Calgary, August 11-18, 2026) offers a forum for developers to present new crystallographic software and demonstrate their features through hands-on tutorials. The Fayre will be held August 12-18, with time slots available for registration.

Crystallographic Computing

Co-Chairs: Alexis Rohou & Carlos Oscar Sorzano Sponsoring Commission: Biological Macromolecules Many challenges remain in the quest to fully unlock the potential of cryoEM for structural studies of biology. How can we resolve fine details of dynamic, flexible assemblies? What is the best way to study the structures of macromolecules in their native cellular context? How can we control instruments more efficiently for high-throughput, automated high-resolution imaging? What are the optimal methods for obtaining and validating accurate and reliable atomic models for molecules of interest? For these and other challenges, the development of improved computational methods and algorithms remains a cornerstone of the field. This microsymposium will cover some of the latest computational work in cryoEM and cryoET.

Biological Macromolecules

Co-Chairs: Gerald Audette Sponsoring Commission: Biological Macromolecules This microsymposium will honor Sine Larsen and Michael James, who made pioneering and important contributions to macromolecular crystallography and the structural characterization of enzymes. Apart from being an active scientist, Sine Larsen also gave much of her time to science organization, serving as secretary and later as president of the IUCr. Michael James was the father of macromolecular structural biology in Canada and mentor to dozens of Canadian and international researchers, spending his entire independent career in Edmonton. Given their contributions to the IUCr and to macromolecular structural biology in Canada, it is particularly fitting to honor these scientists at IUCr2026 in Calgary. Talks will focus on many aspects of enzymes, especially structural studies that yield novel insights into mechanisms and protein chemistry.

Biological Macromolecules

Co-Chairs: Rosalba Fittipaldi & Ashwin Shahani Sponsoring Commission: Crystal Growth and Characterization of Materials Supporting Commission: Crystallography of Materials This symposium will highlight advances in the synthesis and crystal growth of metastable materials, eutectics and peritectics. Understanding nucleation and growth under out-of-equilibrium conditions is crucial for controlling phase formation and stability. The emerging synthesis methods raise several important topics, including the physics of non-equilibrium pattern formation, multi-step phase transformation pathways, dopant and impurity segregation at interfaces, microstructural hierarchy, metastable co-crystalline structures, and multifunctional properties. We invite scientists engaged in the synthesis and characterization of eutectic, peritectic, and crystal growth of metastable systems to join this micro-symposium. Contributions that explore novel synthetic strategies, real-time monitoring methods, and mechanistic insights into metastable crystal growth are encouraged.

Crystal Growth and Characterization of Materials
Crystallography of Materials

Co-Chairs: Reinhard Neder & Christopher Chantler Sponsoring Commission: Crystallographic Computing Co-Sponsoring Commission: XAFS Supporting Commission: Powder Diffraction Material three-dimensional structures are complex, with both statistical and systematic issues in the data collected. Protein and small-molecule XRD contain large extended 3D datasets for the determination of space group, bonding, primary, secondary, tertiary, and sometimes quaternary structure, electron density, and increasingly local order and disorder. High-accuracy XAS spectra are primarily two-dimensional but incorporate additional dimensions to remove systematics and establish statistical value, aiming to determine three-dimensional structure with local but not necessarily extended order. RIXS and HERFD techniques are often intrinsically high-resolution three-dimensional datasets but can be expanded to reveal more local bonding and electronic structure. In all cases, advanced techniques to reveal and define structure are important current developments. Computational crystallography leverages advanced algorithms and data-fusion techniques to combine crystallographic data such as X-ray, electron, and neutron diffraction with complementary methodologies including spectroscopy, tomography, and scattering experiments. The integration of diverse datasets presents challenges such as data alignment, resolution discrepancies, and varying experimental conditions, necessitating the development of robust computational workflows.

Crystallographic Computing
XAFS

Co-Chairs: Andrey Yakovenko & Julia Payne Sponsoring Commission: Powder Diffraction Co-Sponsoring Commission: Neutron Scattering Materials research has progressed from simply characterizing structures to probing crystallographic changes as materials function within devices. To enable this, researchers are developing new sample environments that reproduce real-world operating conditions during diffraction and total scattering experiments. These advances have become vital tools for pushing the boundaries of experimentation and deepening our understanding of functional materials in action. Cutting-edge in situ and operando experiments now allow us to probe not only structural changes and mechanisms but also the performance of complete devices under realistic conditions. This microsymposium will highlight developments in in situ and operando methodologies, including new experimental environments, their application to diverse functional materials, and approaches for exploring multiple external stimuli to achieve a holistic understanding of materials and devices under operation.

Neutron Scattering
Powder Diffraction

Co-Chairs: Dylan Jayatilaka & Anna Hoser Sponsoring Commission: Quantum Crystallography Co-Sponsoring Commission: Crystallographic Computing Supporting Commission: Committee for the Maintenance of the CIF Standard (COMCIFS) A major strength of quantum crystallography is the development of computer-based methods that span modeling, refinement based on experimental data, databasing, and AI/ML applications. Quantum crystallography lies at the intersection of quantum theory and experiments aimed at measuring quantum mechanical observables within crystallography. Technique developments in the computational, theoretical, and experimental realms are sought as contributions to this microsymposium. Furthermore, with the increasing amount of information generated by quantum crystallographic techniques, the evolution of CIF dictionaries and libraries is an additional focus.

Crystallographic Computing
Quantum Crystallography
Committee for the Maintenance of the CIF Standard (COMCIFS)

Co-Chairs: Melissa Ann Gräwert & Kushol Gupta Sponsoring Commission: Small Angle Scattering Recent advancements in small-angle scattering (SAS) are elevating pharmaceutical research, offering powerful tools to tackle emerging challenges in drug discovery and development. SAS provides critical insights into internal structure, stability, flexibility, and interactions under near-physiological conditions. This microsymposium will explore the latest developments in SAS techniques, focusing on their application in accelerating pharmaceutical innovation and addressing key questions in drug discovery, formulation, and delivery. Insights will include high-throughput screening of drug candidates as well as new approaches that couple online purification systems, such as asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation (AF4), for the detailed characterization of complex and novel drug delivery systems including lipid nanoparticles (LNPs). In addition to these hardware solutions, advances in rapid acquisition of high-quality data, coupled with robust and comprehensive analysis, are enabling faster decision-making across the entire drug development process.

Small-Angle Scattering

Co-Chairs: Alexandra Gibbs & Oscar Fabelo Sponsoring Commission: Magnetic Structures Co-Sponsoring Commission: Aperiodic Crystals Aperiodic magnetic structures pose both challenges and opportunities in the study of condensed matter physics. Neutron scattering has traditionally been a key technique for investigating these systems, offering valuable insights into the connections between aperiodicity, magnetism, and material properties. More recently, advances in synchrotron radiation sources have positioned X-ray scattering as an effective alternative or complementary method for studying aperiodic magnetic structures. This microsymposium will focus on recent progress in the study of aperiodic structures, including purely magnetic aperiodic systems and those combining nuclear and magnetic aperiodicity. Contributions are especially encouraged that highlight advancements in scattering techniques, including innovations in instrumentation, improvements in data processing and analysis software, and applications to understanding aperiodic magnetic systems.

Aperiodic Crystals
Magnetic Structures

Co-Chairs: Cora Lind-Kovacs & Karena Chapman Sponsoring Commission: Crystallography of Materials Co-Sponsoring Commission: Powder Diffraction Supporting Commission: Crystal Growth and Characterization of Materials This microsymposium will highlight advances in sustainable materials for energy storage, conversion, and environmental remediation, with a focus on the insights that crystallography can bring to the rational design of sustainable materials. Ideally, this knowledge will lead to the targeted design and accelerated development of sustainable materials. Topics include batteries, nuclear materials, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), catalysis, solar energy, hydrogen storage and separation, fuel cells, and byproduct remediation. Emphasis will be placed on the role of advanced structural techniques, including powder diffraction and pair distribution function (PDF) analysis, in understanding and optimizing material performance. Contributions that explore novel materials, characterization methods, and structure-property relationships are encouraged.

Crystal Growth and Characterization of Materials
Crystallography of Materials
Powder Diffraction

Co-Chairs: Mauro Gemmi & Tatiana Gorelik Sponsoring Commission: Electron Crystallography Single-crystal electron diffraction is reaching an accuracy level that approaches that of X-ray crystallography. With advancements in data collection and processing, such as the application of dynamical refinement, it is now possible to refine hydrogen positions in both organic and inorganic structures, determine partial occupancies, observe guest molecules, and establish the absolute configuration of chiral compounds. However, further improvements are needed to close the accuracy gap between electron and X-ray crystallography. This microsymposium will highlight recent developments in data collection, analysis, and modeling, as well as structure refinement techniques in electron diffraction.

Electron Crystallography

Quantum Crystallography
Keynote

Powder Diffraction
Keynote