Richard Kelly – Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry Blog

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Twitter Poster Conference 2017

31 Jan 2017

Want to share your research with like-minded chemists around the world and win prizes without having to leave the lab? Then why not enter our Twitter Poster Conference!

Happening on Monday 20^th March (9am GMT) to Tuesday 21^st March (9am GMT), this exclusively online event brings members of the scientific research community together to network, share and engage in scientific debate.

How to Take Part

During the event simply tweet an image (e.g. JPEG) which will be a digital poster summarising your research along with #RSCPoster, the most appropriate subject area hashtag (either #RSCOrg or #RSCChemBio) and the title of your work.

For example:

Example tweet for the 2017 RSC Twitter Poster Conference

You will then need to upload your poster and details onto our Tumblr site, under either the RSC Org or RSC ChemBio categories depending on your poster (more information on the site).

How to Win

Poster prizes will be given for posters with the best content, design, accessibility and interactions (like questions asked and answered) – so make sure you check back regularly in the day and follow #RSCPoster. There is also an audience award for the most re-tweeted poster.

To be able to win a prize, email us before the event at RSCPoster@gmail.com and let us know your name, contact details, the title of your topic and your twitter ID.

Full terms and conditions can be found here, as well as other subject area hashtags.

GOOD LUCK!

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Organic Chemistry Symposia finish in Kyoto

05 Jun 2015

It’s the final day of our symposium series and it’s been another great one, in the historic city of Kyoto. Many thanks to our host Professor Keiji Maruoka.

Entrance to the Kyoto symposium

Professor Ken Itami

The speakers again presented some really exciting and innovative research. Alongside the international speakers Professor Naoto Chatani from Osaka University presented his work on Ni-catalysed functionalization of C-H bonds; OBC Editorial Board member Professor Kenichiro Itami (Nagoya University) talked about how C-H functionalization can be applied to biological and materials problems; and Professor Michinori Suginome presented on chirality-switchable helical macromolecules.

Speakers, host and RSC staff

Once again we saw some great work from some early career researchers: Professors Norie Momiyama (Institute of Molecular Research), Takuya Hashimoto (Kyoto University), Yusuke Kita and Koji Hirano (both from Osaka University).

It’s been a fantastic week of organic chemistry. Many thanks to all the hosts and speakers for making it a great set of symposia!

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Japan Organic Symposium travels to Tokyo

04 Jun 2015

On to day two of the symposium series, this time at University of Tokyo’s fantastic new auditorium.

The international speakers were joined by a great line-up of researchers from the Tokyo area. First up was Professor Keisuke Suzuki from University of Tokyo, giving a great tour of his research on synthesis of hybrid natural products.

Professor Keisuke Suzuki gives his talk in the University's new auditorium

MedChemComm Advisory Board member Professor Mikiko Sodeoka from RIKEN presented some really nice work on trifluoromethylation of olefins and then the day was rounded off with a fantastic talk from Professor Hiroaki Suga (University of Tokyo) on his innovative peptide research.

Flash Presenter Assistant Professor Keiji Mori

As in Sendai we heard some really nice talks from a number of early career researchers: Professor Keiji Mori (Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology), Professor Yuichiro Hirayama (University of Shizuoka), Professor Shuhei Kusumoto and My Shunichiro Kato (both from University of Tokyo).

Participants in Tokyo

Many thanks to Professor Masayuki Inoue for hosting a great day!

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Organic chemistry Symposium – Tohoku University

02 Jun 2015

We’ve just completed a great first day of the Japan Organic Chemistry Symposia.

Hosted by Professor Masahiro Terada at Tohoku University, the symposium featured speakers from the host university, Nihon University and Hokkaido University, along with international members of our journals’ Editorial Boards.

Tohoku University students outside the auditorium

First up was Professor Hidetoshi Tokuyama from Tohoku University, presenting on his syntheses of dihydrooxepine-containing epidithiodiketopiperazine natural products, then Erik Sorensen from Princeton University and the Editorial Board of Organic Chemistry Frontiers talked about some of his latest research in C-H functionalization.

Professor Tokuyama presenting

After lunch the packed audience saw talks from Professor Hiroyuki Isobe from Tohoku University on his latest research on cycloarylenes, and then Huw Davies from Emory University and the ChemSocRev Editorial Board talked about the NSF CCI Center for Selective C-H Functionalization, a really innovative collaboration between researchers in the US.

The packed audience in Sendai

Mid-afternoon saw some great Invited lectures by early career faculty: Professors Nozomi Saito and Shintaro Ishida from Tohoku University, Tsuyoshi Mita from Hokkaido University and Atsushi Kobayashi from Nihon University.

Hosts, speakers and the Royal Society of Chemistry team

The day was rounded off with plenary lectures from Professor Masaya Sawamura from Hokkaido University on hydrogen bonding with nonpolar sp3 C-H bonds in enantioselective cooperative metal catalysis, and Professor Margaret Brimble from University of Auckland and the Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry Editorial Board on some of her latest syntheses of benzannulated spiroketal natural products.

We’d like to thank Professor Terada and his colleagues for making it such a great symposium!

Speaker abstracts and biographies

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Japan Organic Chemistry Symposia – June 2015

02 Jun 2015

This week the Royal Society of Chemistry is visiting three institutes in Japan for our 2015 Organic Chemistry Symposia. We’ll be at Tohoku University on Monday 1^st June, University of Tokyo on Wednesday 3^rd and Kyoto University on Friday 5^th.

Each symposium will feature speakers from Japanese universities along with three international speakers who will travel to each institute.

The symposia are presented by our journals Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry and Organic Chemistry Frontiers, and supported by ChemComm, Chemical Society Reviews and Chemical Science. We’re very grateful to our hosts -Professor Masahiro Terada in Sendai, Professor Masayuki Inoue in Tokyo and Professor Keiji Maruoka in Kyoto – for their support for these events.

We hope to see you at one of the symposia!

More details about the symposia, including schedules and biographies:
Sendai | Tokyo | Kyoto

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Vaccines for heroin

19 Aug 2014

The number of deaths due to heroin overdoses has severely increased in last decade, and regular consumption of heroin leads to serious health concerns.

Vaccination is one of the emerging choices among heroin rehabilitation therapies. In general, these vaccines contain heroin-like hapten as a pharmacophore that acts as an antagonist. This antagonist has high affinity for heroin receptors but does not activate them, hence reverses the effects of heroin. Because of inherent chemical instability, when entered in to bloodstream these anti-heroin drugs rapidly metabolise into several by-products, which makes development of effective vaccines against heroin particularly challenging.

Recently an American research group at National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) lead by Professor Kenner Rice has reported the synthesis and immunological evaluation for a series of haptens.

The team has emphasised the hydrolytic stability of hapten scaffolds and envisioned that hapten with amido groups at both the C3 and C6 positions should be more stable than a hapten with an ester in one of those positions. Insertion of a 3-amino group and the construction of a C-6α-(2-oxo-propyl) group stereoselectively was the challenging task towards the synthesis of designed hapten derivatives. The group has tackled the synthetic hurdle by adopting convergent synthesis approach and validating the stereochemistry by single X ray crystallography.

Furthermore, in vivo Immunological studies of all three new synthetic haptens reveals that one derivative DiAmHap (3) is chemically more stable and better candidate for a heroin vaccine than 6-PrOxyHap (1) and DiPrOxyHap (2). This work is a very positive step towards the development of vaccines for heroin abuse.

Synthesis and immunological effects of heroin vaccines
Fuying Li, Kejun Cheng, Joshua F. G. Antoline, Malliga R. Iyer, Gary R. Matyas, Oscar B. Torres, Rashmi Jalah, Zoltan Beck, Carl R. Alving, Damon A. Parrish, Jeffrey R. Deschamps, Arthur E. Jacobson and Kenner C. Rice
DOI: 10.1039/C4OB01053A

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Amino acids: fluorescensors for mercury ions

12 Aug 2014

Many human activities have been responsible for heavy metal poisoning in recent years, Mercury (Hg) poisoning being one of them. Mercury occurs in several forms and even trace concentrations of mercury ions in crops, fish or the human body are enough to produce potentially toxic effects to vital organs. Mercury poisoning can lead to several diseases including Acrodynia (also known as the pink disease), the Hunter-Russell syndrome and the Minamata disease.

Selective detection of mercury, particularly in aqueous media, has been a key area for analytical chemists, since traditional analytical techniques for mercury detection are time consuming, laborious and involve expensive instrumentation. In this work, Korean researcher Keun-Hyeung Lee and co-workers have developed a pair of very sensitive amino acid based fluorescence-ON probes for the exclusive detection of mercury ions in aqueous solution.

The team has combined the fluorescence properties of pyrene and Hg(II) binding ability of tyrosine residues for the design and synthesis of two novel fluorescensors. Both newly-synthesised probes show emission maxima at 386 and 400 nm in the absence of Hg(II) ion. Upon titration with Hg(II) ions, both probes show exponential fluorescence enhancement and display a remarkable red shift (90-100 nm) emission. These probes are also highly selective for mercury ions in the presence of a range of other metal ions and are effective in aqueous solutions.

The team further clarifies the binding mode of these sensors and the coordination of the metal ion. This method can be implemented for rapid and quantitative detection of Hg(II) from various polluted water sources. This work also underscores the unconventional use of an amino acid as a chemosensor.

Ratiometric fluorescence chemosensor based on tyrosine derivatives for monitoring mercury ions in aqueous solutions
Ponnaboina Thirupathi, Ponnaboina Saritha (née Gudellin) and Keun-Hyeung Lee
DOI: 10.1039/C4OB01044B

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Introducing two new article types for Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry

19 Nov 2013

OBC is introducing two new review article types: Reviews and Perspectives. These replace previous review article types and offer our authors and readers an even broader range of reviews, opinions and commentaries on the latest developments in organic chemistry and chemical biology.

Reviews
OBC Reviews are short, easy-to-read review articles covering current areas of interest to the OBC audience. Flexible in style, they give a concise and critical appraisal of recent advances in an established field or a new area of research.

Authors are encouraged to include their own views on developments, trends and future directions, with speculation about the future potential of the field particularly encouraged. Reviews are typically 6-12 pages in length.

Reviews replace the previous Perspective and Emerging Area article types. While there is a change in name, the flexibility and breadth of style and content remain very much the same. Authors can write on established topics of current interest or emerging topics that are in the early stages of development. All of these styles will be consolidated under the Review name.*

Perspectives
OBC Perspectives are changing. These are now a new article style which will highlight pieces of exciting, recently-published research. Written by the authors of the original research, Perspectives will give a personal viewpoint on the topic, discussing their research in the wider context of the field and the future potential for the area.

Perspectives are designed to be short (2-4 printed pages) articles, briefly covering:

The background to the research area; its importance and previous developments
A summary of the key aspects of the research paper(s) recently published by the author
An outlook on future progression of the field, including how the author’s research could impact that

Each Perspective will focus on just one or two recently-published research papers by the author. They will not cover large aspects of an author’s previous research.

For guidelines on the new article types please click on the following links: Reviews | Perspectives.

*As a result of these changes the Emerging Area article type has been discontinued. Any emerging area style article should now be submitted under the Review article type.

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RSC Organic Division Poster Symposium 2013, sponsored by F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Ltd.

24 Jul 2013

The poster symposium, for final year organic chemistry PhD students, will take place at The Chemistry Centre, Burlington House, London on Monday 2nd December 2013. The symposium offers final year PhD students a chance to showcase their research to their peers, leading academics and industrial chemists, and is open to all branches of organic chemistry.

The symposium has a tradition of being the most competitive and highly regarded organic chemistry symposium for PhD students in the UK, with generous support provided by F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Ltd. There will be a first prize of £500, two runner-up prizes of £250, and a “selected by Industry Prize”. Industrial delegates will be asked to make this selection with a particular emphasis on the potential for application in an industrial context and the winner will also receive a prize of £500.

Closing date for submissions is Wednesday 2nd October. Further information and abstract submission, via the online submission form, can be found on the symposium webpage.

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OBC poster prizes at the 5th Chemical Protein Synthesis

01 May 2013

Congratulations to Stijn Agten and Claudia Bello who both received OBC poster prizes at the 5th Chemical Protein Synthesis meeting in Vienna last month.

Stijn Agten, from the group of Professor Tilman Hackeng at Maastricht University, The Netherlands won for a poster entitled “Chemoselective reactions in proteins and peptides using an optimized oxime strategy: the demise of levulinic acid”, while Claudia Bello from the Institute of Biological Chemistry at University of Vienna presented a poster entitled “A Chemoenzymatic Approach for the Preparation of Site-Specifically O-Glycosylated MUC1 variants for Proteomic Studies”.

Both winners receive a year’s subscription to OBC.

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Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry Blog