Overview

The MPSA international conference is held in a different country every two years. It is devoted to methods of determining protein structure with emphasis on chemistry and sequence analysis. Until the ninth conference, MPSA was an acronym for Methods in Protein Sequence Analysis. To give the conference more flexibility and breadth, the Scientific Advisory Committee of the lOth MPSA decided to change the name to Methods in Protein Structure Analysis; however, the emphasis remains on "methods" and on "chemistry. " In fact, this is the only major conference that is devoted to methods. The MPSA conference is truly international, a fact clearly reflected by the composi- tion of its Scientific Advisory Committee. The Scientific Advisory Committee oversees the scientific direction of the MPSA and elects the chairman of the conference. Members of the committee are elected by active members, based on scientific standing and activity. The chairman, subject to approval of the Scientific Advisory Committee, appoints the Organizing Committee. It is this latter committee that puts the conference together. The lectures of the MPSA have traditionally been published in a special proceedings issue. This is different from, and more detailed than, the special MPSA issue of the Journal of Protein Chemistry in which only a brief description of the talks is given in short papers and abstracts. In the I Oth MPSA, about half the talks are by invited speakers and the remainder were selected from submitted short papers and abstracts.