Catch up on our latest events and upcoming shows, such as IUCr2026, product in the spotlight is the XtaLAB mini II, and tip of the month shows How to Apply a Numerical Absorption Correction to Improve Model Refinement.
It was a cool 67°F this morning in The Woodlands, TX, a welcome break from the Houston summer heat. Looking ahead to October, our European user meeting will be held in Frankfurt early next month, where the weather typically invites pleasant strolls around nearby Neu-Isenburg.
Jakub provides a recap of the European Crystallographic Meeting held in Poznań last month. This month, we highlight the venerable XtaLAB mini II in the product spotlight. Lee wanted me to remind all of you to update your CellCheckCSD installations with the August 2025 release. You’ll find the download link to do so below. Christian provides this month’s tip of the month, describing how to apply a numerical absorption correction. Yours truly provides the month’s book review on Mathematics for Biosciences: From Theory to Worked Examples and Applications. Jeanette will be back next month.
Due to changes in NSF funding, the National Academy of Sciences will no longer serve as the adhering body for the U.S. to the IUCr, effective January 1, 2026. The American Union of Crystallography (AUC) will assume this role on the same day. If you're a U.S.-based crystallographer and haven't yet heard about the transition from the U.S. National Committee for Crystallography to the AUC, feel free to reach out to me for more details or visit www.aucryst.org.
Lastly, if you haven’t yet expressed your interest in attending the 27th IUCr Congress and General Assembly in Calgary next year, please do so soon at www.iucr2026.org.
COVID is on the rise again, stay positive, test negative,
Our LinkedIn groupshares information and fosters discussion about X-ray crystallography and SAXS topics. Connect with other research groups and receive updates on how they use these techniques in their own laboratories. You can also catch up on the latest newsletter or Rigaku Journal issue. We also hope that you will share information about your own research and laboratory groups.
Atrigakuxrayforum.comyou can find discussions about software, general crystallography issues and more. It’s also the place to download the latest version of Rigaku Oxford Diffraction’sCrysAlisProsoftware for single crystal data processing.
IUCr2026: A Global Gathering for Structural Science
Join us in Calgary, Alberta, from August 11–18, 2026, for the 27th Congress and General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr2026). This triennial event will welcome over 2,500 scientists, researchers, and students from around the world.
IUCr2026 will feature a dynamic scientific program with symposia, workshops, and satellite meetings spanning crystallography, structural biology, materials science, and beyond. It’s a unique opportunity to connect with the global structural science community, share your research, and spark new collaborations.
Calgary is a vibrant, welcoming city known for its summer festivals, diverse dining, and walkable downtown. It’s also the gateway to breathtaking destinations like Banff and Lake Louise—perfect for pre- or post-congress adventures in the Canadian Rockies.
We’re delighted to share a quick roundup from ECM-35 in Poznań, a truly rewarding gathering for the crystallography community. A wave of enthusiastic visitors filled the Rigaku booth, turning it into a lively hub of conversation and collaboration. The workshops were exceptionally helpful, offering hands-on insights, especially the 3D δ-PDF total scattering sessions, from which I personally gained much!
We hope everyone who wanted a conference T-shirt was able to snag on. We apologize if your size wasn’t available, as our most popular one ran out quickly. Nevertheless, the spirit carried on, and the poster session sparked rich discussions. Noteworthy were the developments in quantum crystallography and protein electron crystallography, exciting advances well worth following.
Congratulations are in order for the winners of the 10th anniversary Rigaku Oxford Diffraction drawing at the ECM (#ROD10atECM). We’re also excited by the prospect of welcoming the Coppens Poster Award winner Simona Chalupná to our Application Labs for a future visit. Here’s hoping we’ll see you in action soon!
The perfect addition to any synthetic chemistry laboratory, the XtaLAB mini II single crystal X-ray diffractometer will enhance research productivity by offering affordable structure analysis capability without the necessity of relying on a departmental facility. With the XtaLAB mini II benchtop diffractometer, you no longer have to wait in line to determine your structures. Instead your research group can rapidly analyze new compounds as they are synthesized in the lab without having to queue up in the departmental core facility.
When designing the PhotonJetMAX-S, our goal was to enhance performance without increasing operating costs. The PhotonJetMAX-S uses the same tube technology as the PhotonJet-S, ensuring that when a replacement tube is needed, the cost remains the same. Additionally, it operates at the same power level as the PhotonJet-S, making it equally eco-friendly.
XtaLAB mini II Overview:
Teach single crystal X-ray diffraction through hands-on experience
In many universities, the departmental single crystal X-ray diffractometer is considered off limits to students because of fear the instrument might be damaged by inexperienced users. The XtaLAB mini II benchtop diffractometer provides the opportunity for students to learn single crystal X-ray analysis by actually using a fully functional diffractometer. This is not a black box instrument. Rather, performing the important steps of mounting a crystal on the goniometer and physically centering the crystal in the position of the X-ray beam ensures that students learn the importance of mounting techniques and crystal selection. The simple design of the XtaLAB mini II X-ray diffractometer minimizes the possibility of students misaligning or damaging the system.
Compact size with excellent X-ray data quality
The Rigaku XtaLAB mini II is a research-grade chemical crystallography diffractometer that sits on the benchtop. No data quality compromises. Results delivered are unambiguous. X-ray source tube lifetime is extended by running a standard off-the-shelf X-ray tube at 600 W. To compensate for running at a lower power, a SHINE optic (special curved monochromator) is utilized to produce usable X-ray flux comparable to a standard X-ray diffractometer. In addition, the XtaLAB mini II is equipped with a state-of-the-art two-dimensional semiconductor detector that is characterized by extremely low background noise and high sensitivity. These detector characteristics mean that, for weakly diffracting samples, longer scan rates can be employed without the weak diffraction signals being swamped by detector noise.
Dedicated to producing publication quality single crystal X-ray structures
The chief design requirement when creating the XtaLAB mini II single crystal X-ray diffractometer was that the structures produced would be publishable in the most demanding scientific journals. The HPC X-ray detector is positioned so that the maximum 2θ value is well outside of the Acta Cryst. requirements. The software provides all the tools you need to generate publication quality data that can be used to determine 3D structures from a variety of structure analysis packages.
CrysAlisPro single crystal X-ray diffraction software
The XtaLAB mini II comes complete with CrysAlisPro, our user-inspired data collection and data processing software for single crystal analysis. Designed around an easy-to-use graphical user interface, CrysAlisPro can be operated under fully automatic, semi-automatic or manual control. CrysAlisPro combines automated crystal screening, the fastest and most accurate strategy software available, concurrent data reduction and automatic small molecule structure solution. Visual feedback is provided for each step with clear, color-coded guidance so that both novices and experts can collect high-quality data in the shortest time possible.
AutoChem: Automated single crystal structure determination software (optional)
AutoChem is an optional software package for the XtaLAB mini II and is the ultimate productivity tool for chemical crystallographers, offering fast, fully automatic X-ray structure solution and refinement during data collection. Developed in collaboration with OlexSys Ltd (Durham University, UK), AutoChem works in conjunction with Olex² where more advanced structure solution and refinement functionality exists. AutoChem is seamlessly integrated within CrysAlisPro and forms an integral part of our ‘What is this?’ feature. The ‘What is this?’ feature gives you structures quickly and ensures you are not wasting time collecting full datasets on known samples or starting materials. It is an alternative pre-experiment option, which is used to plan your full data collections.
Optimize your crystallization conditions with precision.
The Wizard pH Buffer Screen is an essential optimization tool designed to help you fine-tune crystallization hits by simultaneously evaluating the impact of pH and buffer composition on crystal growth.
This 96-condition screen includes:
12 unique buffer systems
8 pH values, incremented by 0.4 pH units
A total of 96 unique buffer solutions
Use it to efficiently map out the most favorable crystallization environment, saving valuable time in the optimization phase.
Rigaku School for Practical Crystallography
The Rigaku School for Practical Crystallography (RSfPC) is now available on-demand!
The RSfPC is a course aimed at newcomers to crystallography and focuses on the practical aspects of crystallography with 10 lectures covering approx 10 hours and a course exam at the end.
The Rigaku School for Practical Crystallography was created during the pandemic to help fill the gap left by the cancellation of many regional crystallographic teaching schools. Thanks to the positive response over the past four years, it has continued to grow. Now offered on-demand, the course aims to make learning more accessible by overcoming time-zone challenges and reaching a wider audience.
We’re excited to welcome new students to the Rigaku School for Practical Crystallography.
CellCheckCSD Expanded to Include Inorganic Structures
CellCheckCSD, the free tool for checking unit cells to see if a structure is new or previously reported, now includes data from over 300,000 entries in the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD).
Researchers can now determine whether their cell is unique against inorganic structures of the ICSD, as well as the small molecule structures of the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD).
Researchers from Austria, Switzerland and the US report the routine experimental determination of partial charges using electron diffraction data, using ionic scattering factors modeling.
August 27, 2025
Researchers from China and the US report the crystal structures of cannabinoid receptor 1 to which two different agonists are bound.
By Elspeth F. Garman and Nicola Laurieri, World Scientific Publishing Europe, Ltd., 2025, 426 pp.
I always feel a bit of trepidation when asked to review a book written by someone I know. I have had some real clunkers come across my desk. The fact that I am writing this review should tell you: Mathematics for Biosciences is a good book. Being an American, some of the British colloquialisms required some thinking on my part. For example, I learned to “solve for y” rather than “make y the subject of the equation”.
The book is divided into nine chapters covering basic tools, basic algebra, graphs, basic functions, differentiation, exponential and log functions, trigonometric functions and complex numbers, integration and differential equations. Each chapter has a brief introduction, a clear explanation of the topic, and numerous real-world examples from biology, biochemistry, chemistry and medicine. Finally, exercises reinforce the subject matter. At the end of each chapter, there is an answer key.
Each chapter is well written and sufficiently detailed for an advanced high school or college student to grasp. DiffEQs were my bane as a second-year student, and the authors did a great job of simplifying a complex subject into a single, accessible chapter. The book effectively integrates the basic concepts of mathematics and the sciences, a feature often overlooked in general math texts.
There is one deficiency, especially given the nature of bioscience: a chapter on statistics. I hope the second edition will address this area. Despite this, Mathematics for Biosciences is an accessible, well-structured resource that I would confidently recommend to students and instructors alike.
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