Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry Blog

Next month I will be attending the 19th European Symposium on Organic Chemistry (ESOC 2015) held in Lisbon, Portugal, 12 – 16 July, and if you too are in attendance, I’d love to meet you there!

Dr Marie Cote, Oganic & Biomolecular Chemistry Deputy Editor

Please let us know if you will also be in attendance and would like to arrange a meeting – simply email us at the OBC editorial office.

OBC, ChemComm, Chemical Science and MedChemComm are delighted to be media partners of the conference, and there’s lots to look forward to again on this 19th edition of the symposium:

• Prof. Peter Chen (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) will be presenting the Patai Rappoport Lecture 2015,
• Prof. Christina Moberg (KTH School of Chemical Science and Engineering, Sweden) is the recipient of the 2014 EuCheMs Lecture Award, and
• Prof. Nuno Maulide (University of Vienna, Austria) will present the Young Researcher Award Lecture

Plenary lectures at the symposium will be given by :

• Prof. Carlos A. M. Afonso (University of Lisbon, Portugal)
• Prof. Ernest Giralt (Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Spain)
• Prof. Guy Lloyd-Jones (University of Edinburgh, UK)
• Prof. Ilan Marek (Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Israel)
• Prof. Peter H. Seeberger (Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany)
• Prof. Timothy M. Swager (MIT, USA)
• Prof. F. Dean Toste (UC Berkeley, USA)
• Prof. Dirk Trauner (University of Munich, Germany)
• Prof. Helma Wennemers (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)

Access the full scientific programme

Will you be presenting a poster? ChemComm, OBC and MedChemComm will each be awarding a Poster Prize at ESOC 2015

I look forward to meeting many of you in Lisbon!

Congratulations to Hanna Jędrzejewska from the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw for winning the Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry poster prize awarded at the 9th International Symposium on Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry (ISMSC-9) held at SIOC, Shanghai, on 7-11 June 2014.

The title of her winning poster was: Chiral self-sorting of hybrid peptidic capsules

Hanna wins a copy of the book Polymeric and Self Assembled Hydrogels : From Fundamental Understanding to Applications, signed by its author, and winner of the 2014 Cram Lehn Pedersen Prize Prof. Oren Scherman.

Hanna Jędrzejewska, OBC Poster Prize winner (right) is presented with a certificate and RSC Book, by Prof. Andrew Wilson (left) and Dr. Marie Cote (OBC Deputy Editor, centre)

On her winning work, Hanna comments:

This project aims at the synthesis of bio-compatible peptidic capsules by means of self-organization of short peptides. Such capsules can be further used for encapsulation, storage and transport of biologically relevant targets. Even though peptides are endowed with natural self-assembling properties, capsules made of short “native” peptides do not form spontaneously due to high conformational lability and tendency to form non-porous random aggregates. I have found that this disadvantage can be overcome by properly designed scaffolds that “guide” peptides into capsular structures. I have used short peptides of various chirality attached in a dynamical covalent way to the macrocyclic skeleton. This way I have obtained building blocks that spontaneously self-sort into porous peptidic capsules resembling closed β-barrels.

I’ve been working on this topic for 1 year. This research is fully supported by the PARENT/BRIDGE programme that enables the best researchers who are raising young children to return to advanced research work. The programme is financed by Foundation for Polish Science within European Regional Development Fund under the Innovative Economy Operational Programme 2007-2013.

Hanna works as a PhD student in the group of Prof. Agnieszka Szumna.

Congratulations again to Hanna – the OBC team whishes her all the very best with her research work!

From left to right: Prof. Zhanting Li, Hanna Jędrzejewska (OBC Poster Prize Winner), Prof. Andrew Wilson, Prof. Oren Scherman, Dr. Robert Eagling, Prof. Jonathan Sessler and Dr Marie Cote

 I will shortly be attending the 18th European Symposium on Organic Chemistry (ESOC 2013) held in Marseilles, France, 7-12 July, and if you too are in attendance, I’d love to meet you there!

Dr Marie Cote, Oganic & Biomolecular Chemistry Deputy Editor

Please let us know if you will also be in attendance and would like to arrange a meeting – simply email us at the OBC editorial office.

OBC is delighted to be a media partner of the conference, and there’s lots to look forward to again on this 18th edition of the symposium:

• Prof. Ben Feringa (University of Groningen, The Netherlands) will be presented with the 2013 Lilly European Distinguished Award,
• Prof. Nazario Martin (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain) is the recipient of the 2012 EuCheMs Lecture Award, and
• Dr Joel Turconi (Sanofi, France) will present the SANOFI Lecture

Plenary lectures at the symposium will be given by :

• Prof. Alexandre Alexakis (University of Geneva, Swiss)
• Prof. Fernando P. Cossio (University of the Basque Country, Spain)
• Prof. Ben Davis (University of Oxford, UK)
• Prof. Frank Glorius (University of Muenster, Germany)
• Prof. David MacMillan (Princeton University, USA)
• Prof. Eiichi Nakamura (University of Tokyo, Japan)
• Prof. Michael Orfanopoulos (University of Crete, Greece)
• Prof. Joost Reek (Van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences, The Netherlands)
• Prof. Raffaele Riccio (Universita degli studi di Salerno, Italy)
• Prof. Doug Stephan (University of Toronto, Canada)

Access the full scientific programme

I look forward to meeting many of you in Marseilles!

Were you there?  Or you might have been following the live tweets from @Grasmere2013, updated by @APDobbs & @AzaPrins?

For a round up of the meeting and some highlight pictures, why not read below for a summary by this year’s organisers!

Grasmere 2013

The Heterocyclic Group began in 1967 and first held a Heterocyclic Conference in the Lake District village of Grasmere in May 1973. This meeting has been repeated every two years since, and the latest in this series took place 9-13th May 2013 and organised by Professors Adrian Dobbs (University of Greenwich) and David Knight (Cardiff University). 

This was a landmark for the meeting, marking 40 years since the first such meeting and the 21st meeting in the series – the ‘coming of age’ symposium! The original founder of the meeting, Professor Otto Meth-Cohn was in attendance and one member of the group, Professor Gurnos Jones has attended all 21 meetings.  As ever, lectures were held in Grasmere Village Hall and the conference booked-out two local hotels, as well as numberous B&B’s. Excellent science and food were in abundance during the meeting, as was the Lakeland rain, but a good time was had by all.

Highlights of the meeting included the presentations of two RSC Medals and their associated lectures: to Professor Scott Rychnovsky (UC Irvine, Pedler Medal) and Professor Chris Moody (University of Nottingham, Charles Rees Medal and Lecture).

Group photo outside Grasmere village Hall

Dr Robin Attrill (GSK); Prof Adrian Dobbs (Uni of Greenwich & Sec/Treasurer Heterocycli & Synthesis Group); Prof Scott Rychnovsky (recipient of the RSC Pedler Medal Award); Dr David Rees (Org Div President); Dr Marie Cote (Deputy Editor, OBC)

Prof Keith Jones (ICR); Prof Chris Moody (Uni of Nottingham, recipient of the RSC Charles Rees Award); Dr David Rees (Astex Pharmaceuticals)