Marie Cote, Deputy Editor – Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry Blog

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Meet the team at ESOC 2015

01 Jun 2015

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!

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OBC call for papers: Multivalent Biomolecular Recognition themed issue

09 Feb 2015

Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry is delighted to announce a call for paper for its latest themed issue on: Multivalent Biomolecular Recognition

Guest Editors: Prof. Mihail Barboiu (Institut Européen des Membranes, France), Prof. Olof Ramström (KTH – Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden) and Prof. Stéphane Vincent (University of Namur, Belgium)

Submission Deadline: 15^th July 2015

From the guest-editors:

The understanding and control of multivalent biomolecular interactions has become one of the key frontiers of chemistry and biology. This issue will cover important findings and advances in the field, in order to:
1. Develop functional sugar decorated nanoplatforms (nanoparticles, nanostructured surfaces, vesicles, microarrays, etc.).
2. Understand the biomolecular mechanisms by exploring their synergistic adaptive interactions with biomolecules, in order to accurately control the chemical/biological responses.

The inspiration for this issue comes partly from our membership of the EU-funded Dynamic Interactive Nanosystems ITN Marie Curie DYNANO Network (see http://www.dynano.eu ). We hope that colleagues from the Network will participate but are also very welcoming to contributors who have not (yet) joined our association.

Research in OBC is published as communications (for urgent work – up to 5 pages in length) or full papers. There is also the opportunity to write a Perspective or Review article for the issue, and if you would be interested in this please let us know. All submissions will be subject to rigorous peer review to meet the usual high standards of OBC.

The deadline for submissions to the themed issue is 15^th July 2015, although submissions before this date are of course welcomed.

Manuscripts can be submitted using the RSC’s online submissions service. Please clearly mark that the manuscript is submitted for the themed issue on ‘Multivalent Biomolecular Recognition’.

Please would you inform the editorial office by e-mail as soon as possible if you plan to submit to the issue and whether your contribution will be original research or a review-type article. We would like to have a list of authors who intend to contribute as soon as possible.

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Winners at the 2014 RSC Organic Division Poster Symposium

04 Dec 2014

Congratulations to the winners at the 2014 RSC Organic Division Poster Symposium, held on 01 December 2014 at the Royal Society of Chemistry, Burlington House, London.

The symposium, supported by headline sponsor F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, provided a fantastic opportunity for final year organic chemistry PhD students to showcase their research and network with their peers, leading academics, and industrial chemists.

Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry was delighted to offer a front cover artwork opportunity to the winner of the First Prize, as well as a 1-year personal subscription to the journal to the winner of the Industry Prize.

First Prize

Sonja Kuschel, University of Manchester (Supervisor: Professor David Leigh). Poster title: Towards man-made ribosomes: Nanomachines for sequential peptide synthesis

Runners Up Prizes

Antony Burton, University of Bristol (Supervisor: Professor Derek Woolfson). Poster title: Installing Catalytic Activity into a de novo Designed Protein Structure

Sarah Walker, Heriot-Watt University (Supervisor: Dr Ai-Lan Lee). Poster title: Development of Pd(II)-catalysed oxidative Heck reactions and CH functionalisations

Industry Prize (selected by the industrial delegates)

Antoine Maruani, University College London (Supervisors: Professor Stephen Caddick and Dr Vijay Chudasama). Poster title: A Novel Class of Tuneable reagents for Selective Dual Modification of Proteins

Participants’ Prize (selected by the students)

Owen Davis, Imperial College London (Supervisor: Dr James Bull). Poster title: Synthesis and Functionalisation of Highly Substituted Oxetanes: Molecular Scaffolds for Drug Discovery

The event was also supported by: AstraZeneca, Evotec, Johnson Matthey Catalysis and Chiral Technologies, Pfizer Neusentis, Takeda, UCB and Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

Winners (left to right): Sonja Kuschel, Owen Davis, Sarah Walker, Antony Burton, Antoine Maruani (© MPP Image Creation / Royal Society of Chemistry)

With the judges and organising committee (left to right): Dr Andrew Thomas, Dr Anne Horan, Professor Jonathan Clayden, Mr Owen Davis, Professor Rob Field, Mrs Sonja Kuschel, Professor Julian Blagg, Miss Sarah Walker, Professor Stuart Conway, Mr Antony Burton, Mr Antoine Maruani, Dr David Rees, Dr Sarah Rook, Professor Sue Gibson, Miss Charlotte Still (© MPP Image Creation / Royal Society of Chemistry)

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OBC Poster Prize winner at ISMSC-9 in Shanghai

25 Jun 2014

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

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HOT Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry articles for August

23 Aug 2013

Pd(0)-catalyzed benzylic arylation–oxidation of 4-methylquinazolines via sp3 C–H activation under air conditions
Dan Zhao, Min-Xue Zhu, Yue Wang, Qi Shen and Jian-Xin Li
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2013,11, 6246-6249
DOI: 10.1039/C3OB41488D, Communication

Major mechanistic differences between the reactions of hydroxylamine with phosphate di- and tri-esters
Michelle Medeiros, Eduardo H. Wanderlind, José R. Mora, Raphaell Moreira, Anthony J. Kirby and Faruk Nome
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2013,11, 6272-6284
DOI: 10.1039/C3OB40988K, Paper
From themed collection In Celebration of Andrew D. Hamilton’s Career in Chemistry

Novel synthesis of various orthogonally protected Cα-methyllysine analogues and biological evaluation of a Vapreotide analogue containing (S)-α-methyllysine
Souvik Banerjee, Walker J. Wiggins, Jessie L. Geoghegan, Catherine T. Anthony, Eugene A. Woltering and Douglas S. Masterson
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2013,11, 6307-6319
DOI: 10.1039/C3OB41282B, Paper

Synthesis of novel pyrazole-based heterocycles via a copper(II)-catalysed domino annulation
Márió Gyuris, László G. Puskás, Gábor K. Tóth and Iván Kanizsai
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2013,11, 6320-6327
DOI: 10.1039/C3OB41146J, Paper

Structure–activity studies of 4-phenyl-substituted 2′-benzoylpyridine thiosemicarbazones with potent and selective anti-tumour activity
Adeline Y. Lukmantara, Danuta S. Kalinowski, Naresh Kumar and Des R. Richardson
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2013,11, 6414-6425
DOI: 10.1039/C3OB41109E, Paper

Transport of macrocyclic compounds across phospholipid bilayers by umbrella-rotaxanes
Christine Chhun, Josée Richard-Daniel, Julie Kempf and Andreea R. Schmitzer
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2013, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C3OB41209A, Paper

Bifunctional building blocks in the Ugi-azide condensation reaction: a general strategy toward exploration of new molecular diversity
Steven Gunawan and Christopher Hulme
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2013, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C3OB40900G, Paper

Comparative in vitro studies of MR imaging probes for metabotropic glutamate subtype-5 receptor targeting
Sven Gottschalk, Jörn Engelmann, Gabriele A. Rolla, Mauro Botta, David Parker and Anurag Mishra
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2013, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C3OB41297K, Paper

Synthesis and biological evaluation of non-isomerizable analogues of Ala-tRNA^Ala
Denia Mellal, Matthieu Fonvielle, Marco Santarem, Maryline Chemama, Yoann Schneider, Laura Iannazzo, Emmanuelle Braud, Michel Arthur and Mélanie Etheve-Quelquejeu
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2013, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C3OB41206G, Paper

First synthesis of antitumoral dasyscyphin B
Ali Akhaouzan, Antonio Fernández, Ahmed I. Mansour, Esteban Alvarez, Ali Haidöur, Ramón Alvarez-Manzaneda, Rachid Chahboun and Enrique Alvarez-Manzaneda
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2013, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C3OB41290C, Paper

Open Access

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In Celebration of Andrew D. Hamilton’s Career in Chemistry

22 Aug 2013

Professor Andrew D. Hamilton FRS

We are delighted to present an on-line collection of articles dedicated to Professor Andrew D. Hamilton FRS, on the occasion of his 60th birthday.

Students and colleagues past and present have come together to contribute over 40 communications, full papers, feature articles and perspectives of some of their latest work now published in ChemComm, OBC, MedChemComm and RSC Advances.

“An insight into the rise of a star in molecular recognition, ground breaking discoveries, and on a more light-hearted note, some fond reminiscences of research in Cambridge, Princeton, Pittsburgh, Yale and Oxford.”

Read the introductory Profile article by guest-editors Sam Thompson and Andrew J. Wilson, with the contribution of Sir Alan R. Battersby.

Access the full collection here

As a taster, the collection of articles includes:

Chemical approaches for detection and destruction of nerve agents
Dariush Ajami and Julius Rebek
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2013,11, 3936-3942
DOI: 10.1039/C3OB40324F

Diverse topologies in dynamic combinatorial libraries from tri- and mono-thiols in water: sensitivity to weak supramolecular interactions
Artur R. Stefankiewicz and Jeremy K. M. Sanders
Chem. Commun., 2013,49, 5820-5822
DOI: 10.1039/C3CC41158C

Peptides: minimal drug surrogates to interrogate and interfere with protein function
A. Cruz-Migoni, N. Fuentes-Fernandez and T. H. Rabbitts
Med. Chem. Commun., 2013,4, 1218-1221
DOI: 10.1039/C3MD00142C

A rotaxane host system containing integrated triazole C–H hydrogen bond donors for anion recognition
Nicholas G. White and Paul D. Beer
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2013,11, 1326-1333
DOI: 10.1039/C2OB27229F, Paper

Supramolecular hydrogels based on bola-amphiphilic glycolipids showing color change in response to glycosidases
Rika Ochi, Kazuya Kurotani, Masato Ikeda, Shigeki Kiyonaka and Itaru Hamachi
Chem. Commun., 2013,49, 2115-2117
DOI: 10.1039/C2CC37908B, Communication

Identification of a potent salicylic acid-based inhibitor of tyrosine phosphatase PTP1B
Sina Haftchenary, Daniel P. Ball, Isabelle Aubry, Melissa Landry, Vijay M. Shahani, Steven Fletcher, Brent D. G. Page, Andriana O. Jouk, Michel L. Tremblay and Patrick T. Gunning
Med. Chem. Commun., 2013,4, 987-992
DOI: 10.1039/C3MD00011G

and many more!

Why not have a look at the great cover artworks authors have created to illustrate their articles from the collection – click on the images to access the articles!

Feel free to send the link to the issue to other researchers whom you think will find it interesting and stimulating to read.

We hope you enjoy the collection!

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Meet the team at ESOC 2013

26 Jun 2013

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!

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The power of multivalency against cholera

23 May 2013

An international team of scientists has synthesised a cholera inhibitor that matches both the valency and target sugar of the cholera toxin. The molecule is 100,000 times better at trapping the cholera toxin than inhibitors based on the target sugar alone.

Cholera is an acute intestinal infection that can be fatal in severe cases. It is caused by the cholera toxin, a protein with a disease causing A subunit, surrounded by five B subunits. The B subunits bind to GM1, a pentasaccharide sugar, on the cell membrane of intestinal cells. Once attached, the cholera toxin can inject its toxic A subunit into the cell.

‘Optimally, one would bind all 5 B subunits to one inhibitor that uses this natural GM1 sugar,’ explains Han Zuilhof, from Wageningen University, the Netherlands, who led the work. ‘This should yield the strongest one-on-one complex. Previous work combined either pentavalent scaffolds with simpler sugars, or non-pentavalent scaffolds with the real deal sugar.’ Now, Zuilhof and colleagues have created the first inhibitor that is both pentavalent and uses GM1.

Read the full article in Chemistry World

And read the OBC paper here:
Picomolar inhibition of cholera toxin by a pentavalent ganglioside GM1os-calix[5]arene
Jaime Garcia-Hartjes, Silvia Bernardi, Carel A. G. M. Weijers, Tom Wennekes, Michel Gilbert, Francesco Sansone, Alessandro Casnati and Han Zuilhof

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The 21st Lakeland meeting on Heterocyclic Chemistry and Synthesis, 40 years since the first meeting, was not to be missed!

20 May 2013

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)

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Nucleic Acids: new life, new materials – web themed issue now published!

26 Mar 2013

Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, ChemComm and RSC Advances are delighted to announce the publication of a timely web collection on:

Nucleic Acids: new life, new materials

Guest-edited by:

Michael Gait (MRC, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK)	Nadrian Seeman (New York University, USA)
Makoto Komiyama (University of Tsukuba, Japan)	Oliver Seitz (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany)
David Liu (Harvard University, USA)	Jason Mickelfield (University of Manchester, UK)

Through over 70 communications, full papers, feature articles and perspectives, this collection guides the reader through the most recent and exciting findings in nucleic acids research and applications in emerging areas.

Some of the work presented in this virtual collection is also dedicated to the memory of Professor Har Gobind Khorana (1922 – 2011) and Dr Daniel McGillivray Brown (1923 – 2012) acknowledging their legacy to the nucleic acids community.

“The ingenuity of nucleic acids chemists is formidable, particularly in the newly emerging areas involving DNA architecture combined with novel chemical modifications and material composites. This web collection nicely showcases this potential.”
… Read this and more in the guest-editors’ Editorial for the issue

As a taster, this collection of articles includes:

Pyridostatin analogues promote telomere dysfunction and long-term growth inhibition in human cancer cells
Sebastian Müller, Deborah A. Sanders, Marco Di Antonio, Stephanos Matsis, Jean-François Riou, Raphaël Rodriguez and Shankar Balasubramanian
Org. Biomol. Chem., DOI: 10.1039/C2OB25830G, Paper

A clocked finite state machine built from DNA
Cristina Costa Santini, Jonathan Bath, Andy M. Tyrrell and Andrew J. Turberfield
Chem. Commun., DOI: 10.1039/C2CC37227D

Theoretical model of substrate-assisted self-assembly of DNA nanostructures
Shogo Hamada and Satoshi Murata
RSC Adv., DOI: 10.1039/C2RA20764H

Reduction of metal ions by boranephosphonate DNA
Subhadeep Roy, Magdalena Olesiak, Petra Padar, Heather McCuen and Marvin H. Caruthers
Org. Biomol. Chem., DOI: 10.1039/C2OB26661J

Dehydration from conserved stem regions is fundamental for ligand-dependent conformational transition of the adenine-specific riboswitch
Vinit Kumar, Tamaki Endoh, Kentaro Murakami and Naoki Sugimoto
Chem. Commun., DOI: 10.1039/C2CC34506D

DNA glycoclusters and DNA-based carbohydrate microarrays: From design to applications
François Morvan, Sébastien Vidal, Eliane Souteyrand, Yann Chevolot and Jean-Jacques Vasseur
RSC Adv., DOI: 10.1039/C2RA21550K

The bacterial second messenger c-di-GMP: probing interactions with protein and RNA binding partners using cyclic dinucleotide analogs
Carly A. Shanahan and Scott A. Strobel
Org. Biomol. Chem., DOI: 10.1039/C2OB26724A

A DNA based five-state switch with programmed reversibility
Jonathan R. Burns, Søren Preus, Daniel G. Singleton and Eugen Stulz
Chem. Commun., DOI: 10.1039/C2CC35799B

Two-photon excitation of the fluorescent nucleobase analogues 2-AP and tC
R. S. K. Lane and S. W. Magennis
RSC Adv., DOI: 10.1039/C2RA21881J

…and many more.

We hope that you will find this collection enjoyable and stimulating to read!

Please feel free to send the link to the issue to other researchers who you think may be interested.

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