The 26th Congress and General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) was held in Melbourne, Australia, at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC), between 22 and 29 August 2023. Over 1700 crystallographers from 66 different countries attended the congress in person. There were over 600 oral and 850 poster presentations on a diverse range of topics, including powder diffraction, structural chemistry, crystal growth and characterisation of materials, biological macromolecules, art and cultural heritage, inorganic and mineral structures, electron crystallography, neutron scattering, mathematical and theoretical crystallography, quantum crystallography, and crystallographic teaching. At the congress, a special symposium marked the 75th anniversary of the first General Assembly of the IUCr which took place in Harvard, USA, in 1948, and made reference to the 10th anniversary of the International Year of Crystallography (IYCr) being celebrated in 2024. Malta was one of the new countries which joined the IUCr soon after the IYCr in 2014.
At the IUCr 2023, the University of Malta was represented by Mr Jake Ellul, PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Liana Vella-Zarb, with a poster presentation titled Avenues for Cocrystallisation of Pharmaceuticals using Solid-State Methods, and by Dr Marie Christine Scicluna with her poster titled New Cage-based Imine and Ester Linked COF as a Smart Nanocarrier Drug Delivery System, from the Department of Chemistry鈥檚 CrEMa Laboratories research groups led by Prof. Liana Vella-Zarb and Prof. Ulrich Baisch. Financial support was available through CrEMa Laboratories and the Department of Chemistry.
The IUCr is a scientific union promoting international cooperation in crystallography in order to contribute to all aspects of crystallography; to promote international publication of crystallographic research; to facilitate standardisation of methods, units, nomenclature and symbols; and to form a focus for the relations of crystallography to other sciences. The congress is held every three years around the world and is the largest, most attended international crystallography conference worldwide.
