Michaela Mühlberg – RSC Publishing Blog

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RSC Twitter Poster Conference 2018

14 Dec 2017

The RSC Twitter Poster Conference is back #RSCPoster! Click here for the 2019 edition

9:00 (GMT) Tuesday March 6th to 9:00 (GMT) Wednesday March 7th

The Royal Society of Chemistry Twitter Poster Conference is an online event held entirely over Twitter to bring members of the scientific research community together to share their research, network and engage in scientific debate.

Following on from the success of the previous events, we are excited to announce that the 4^th RSC Twitter Poster Conference will be held from Tuesday March 6th (9am GMT) to Wednesday March 7th (9 am GMT).

How do I 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 and the title of your work.

The hashtags required are:

Analytical – #RSCPoster #RSCAnalytical

Chemical Biology – #RSCPoster #RSCChemBio

Chemistry Education – #RSCPoster #RSCEdu

Engineering – #RSCPoster #RSCEng

Environmental – #RSCPoster #RSCEnv

Inorganic – #RSCPoster #RSCInorg

Materials – #RSCPoster #RSCMat

Nanoscience – #RSCPoster #RSCNano

Organic – #RSCPoster #RSCOrg

Physical – #RSCPoster #RSCPhys

Image courtesy of Matthew Partridge

For instance, if you are presenting an analytical poster, Tweet “Poster Title” #RSCPoster #RSCAnalytical. Throughout the day you can then answer any questions posed to you by other people on Twitter and ask questions about other posters. Make sure you follow #RSCPoster as the conference progresses.

When is it?
Tweet your posters with #RSCPoster and the most relevant subject hashtag between 9am GMT March 6th and 9am GMT March 7^th. To be considered for a prize, make sure you register at any time before the beginning of the event. Be sure to ask and answer lots of questions to ensure your work is well understood!

How do I register?
Pre-registration is not necessary unless you would like to be eligible for a prize. To be considered for one of the poster prizes you will need to verify who you are and where you do your research. We strongly recommend you do this before the event by emailing us and letting us know:
•   Your name, address and contact details
•   The title or topic of your poster
•   Your twitter handle

Is my research area suitable?
The conference is open to anyone working in any area of science whose research topic falls within one of the subject hashtag categories. If you’re unsure if your poster is suitable for the conference, just get in touch and we can advise.

How are the winners selected?
The main aim of the event is to meet new scientists, share ideas and learn about the latest developments in different scientific areas. The scientific committee will select posters which stimulate wide interest and feature innovative, high quality, exciting research. Posters prizes will be awarded for content & accessibility, design and researcher interaction with the conference. There will also be an audience award for the most tweeted poster. For the #RSCEdu Chemistry Education category, two prizes will be awarded: one for the best submission in the area of primary/secondary/further education and one for the best submission in the area of higher education. For all other categories, a first prize and a runner up prize will be up for grabs!

What can I win?
In the Chemistry Education category, there will be a £100 prize available for the best submission in the area of primary/secondary/further education and a £100 prize for the best submission in the area of higher education. In each of the other 9 categories, we will be awarding a first prize of £100 and the second prize will be an RSC book voucher worth £50. We will also have a special prize for the poster that receives the most retweets. Make sure you register before the event to be in with the chance of winning!

Who is organising the event and how do I find them?
At different points throughout the day members of each scientific committee for each subject area will be logging in to Twitter and searching #RSCPoster to ask questions about some of the posters. Make sure you check back in at different times to see if you have any new questions and also make sure you ask questions about other posters. You can also follow the RSC journal twitter accounts relevant to your research category for updates.

Conference Organisers and Committee

Conference Organisers
Royal Society of Chemistry
Matt Baker, University of Strathclyde, UK @ChemistryBaker
Edward Randviir, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK @EdwardRandviir

Subject Chairs

#RSC Analytical	Roy Goodacre, University of Manchester Martín Resano, University of Zaragoza	@RoyGoodacre @MartinResano
#RSCChemBio	Michael Johnson, University of Arizona Marloes Peeters, Manchester Metropolitan University	@blacksciblog @peeters_marloes
#RSCEdu	Claire McDonnell, Dublin Institute of Technology Kristy Turner, University of Manchester	@clairemcdonndit @doc_kristy
#RSCEnv	Peter Vikesland, Virginia Tech Nadine Borduas, ETH Zürich David Megson, Manchester Metropolitan University	@petervikesland @nadineborduas
#RSCInorg	Rebecca Melen, Cardiff University Charlie O’Hara, University of Strathclyde	@rebecca_melen @oharalab
#RSCMat	Athina Anastasaki, UC Santa Barbara Chris Foster, Manchester Metropolitan University	@AthinaAnastasa1 @cwfoster90
#RSCNano	Gemma-Louise Davies, University College London Karen Faulds, University of Strathclyde	@GemmaLouDavies @FauldsKaren
#RSCOrg	Ryan Mewis, Manchester Metropolitan University David Nelson, University of Strathclyde	@RyanMewis @TheNelsonGroup
#RSCPhys	Brian Wagner, University of Prince Edward Island Lars Goerigk, University of Melbourne	@DrummerBoy2112 @lgoer_compchem
#RSCEng	Mark Olson, Tianjin University Tim Noël, Eindhoven University of Technology	@MARK_A_OLSON @NoelGroupTUE

Scientific Committee

Fraser Stoddart, Northwestern University
Zoë Ayres, University of Warwick
Perdita Barran, University of Manchester
James Batteas, Texas A&M University
Gonçalo Bernardes, University of Cambridge
Margaret Brimble, University of Auckland
Holly Butler, University of Strathclyde
Simon Lewis, Curtin University
Jean-François Masson, University of Montreal
Warren Piers, University of Calgary
Michael Seery, University of Edinburgh
Nick Stone, University of Exeter
Marcel Swart, University of Girona
Renée Webster, Monash University
Doug MacFarlane, Monash University
Damien Arrigan, Curtin University
Neil Keddie, University of St Andrews
Yonatan Calahorra, University of Cambridge
Malika Jeffries-El, Boston University

@sirfrasersays
@ZJAyres
@PerditaB
@jamesbatteas
@gbernardes_chem
@BrimbleM
@HollehButler
@SimonWLewis
@Masson_chem
@wpiers1
@seerymk
@profnickstone
@Marcel_Swart
@reneewebs
@DRMacFarlane
@arri_aus
@theyakman
@YonCalahorra
@Chem_Diva

Register for #RSCPoster

We look forward to seeing your research in March!

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to check the copyright and permissions needed for figures or any other parts of my poster which have already been published?
Yes. Copyright owners have the exclusive right to copy their work and to issue copies of their work to the public, and it is an infringement for anyone else to do so without the copyright owner’s permission. If you are reproducing material contained in a Royal Society of Chemistry publication (journal articles, book or book chapters) you may do so providing that you fully acknowledge the original Royal Society of Chemistry publication and include a link back to it. If you wish to include material that has been published by another publisher, you will need to check how the publisher/copyright owner of the third party material wishes to receive permission requests. Information on this can be found on our Permission Requests page at http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/copyright/permission-requests.asp under “Use of third party material in our publications”.

If I include unpublished work in my poster, will I still be able to publish this in a peer-reviewed journal afterwards?
Subject to the usual conditions outlined in the License to Publish, being a part of the Twitter conference will not prevent you using some of the information included in your poster as part of an article in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal. Please note this policy varies by publisher and if you intend to submit your research for publication elsewhere after the event, you should check the individual policy for that journal and publisher.

What size should my poster be?
You can choose any dimensions for your poster, the important thing is that the text and figures are clear for people to read and understand. Using Microsoft PowerPoint, we found a text size of between 12-16 were clear to read when saving an A4 slide as a JPEG and uploading to Twitter. Using an A0 template, the text needed to be between 50 and 60 to be legible. You can use any software you like to create your poster, as long as the image you upload is clear for others to read. We recommend testing your poster on Twitter before the conference to make sure you are happy with your image.

For 2019 #RSCPoster Twitter Conference click here: rsc.li/rsc-poster-2019

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‘Chemosensors and Molecular Logic’ themed collection

20 Oct 2017

The Royal Society of Chemistry is celebrating the 60th birthday of Anthony Czarnik and the 65th birthday of AP de Silva with an online collection on ‘Chemosensors and Molecular Logic’, published across several of our journals. This themed web collection highlights the current state of the art and future directions in these two closely linked fields.

With the launch of this issue, we decided it’s time to get to know Professors Czarnik and de Silva better! Read our interviews below where we ask them about their research, hobbies and what drives them.

Tony Czarnik began his research career in 1983 at Ohio State University, where he worked for ten years. He then worked as Director of Chemistry at Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research, Sr. Director at IRORI Quantum Microchemistry, CSO at Illumina, and CSO at Senseonics. In 2003, he founded Protia, LLC – spin-offs include Deuteria Pharmaceuticals (sold in 2012), Deuteria Beverages, Deuteria Agrochemicals, and Deuteria Biomaterials. In 2012, Dr. Czarnik co-founded DeuteRx, LLC with Dr. Sheila DeWitt. Today, his sole executive position is that of Manager, Deuteria Beverages, LLC.

Dr. Czarnik’s research interests have included fluorescent chemosensors, combinatorial chemistry, RNA-targeted small molecule drugs, DNA sequencing using self-assembled microarrays, and improving chemical products using deuterium enrichment. The unifying focus of his work has been creating new ways in which chemists can be useful.

What do you enjoy about research and what do you dislike? My organic chemistry lab courses drew me into Chemistry. I loved the smells- even the nasty ones. I loved having squeaky clean glassware, and having just the right wrist action to put a solvent bottle’s cap on with one adept motion. I was transfixed by the notion that distillation and crystallization could be used to turn horrible black messes into colorless, pure liquids and solids. I still don’t understand why crystallization works on such wildly different classes of compounds.

What is the greatest challenge you face in your research? Waiting. For everything.

Many important discoveries are initially unexpected. Has it ever happened to you? Yes, in fact in the fluorescent chemosensors area. A student made a ZnCl2 complex of an anthracene diamine and prepared a solution of it for NMR. For no good reason, I shined a UV lamp on the NMR tube. It glowed bright blue. We then set upon a path to understand why.

What is the achievement you are most proud of in your academic career? Total synthesis of my daughter. (I put it in my lab notebook- “My best work to date.”)

What is your hobby? Is there any relationship between hobby and research life? I play piano. In 2010, I earned my Master of Music degree in Composition. At some point during my studies, it hit me that the piano keyboard was actually a periodic table… just with the rows laid end to end. It actually looks like the Periodic Table of the Elements when laid out as on an organ. That was a cool flash of insight.

How to balance the work and your life, and how is your family life? I never learned to do it well. My family has forgiven me time and time again, and so today I am still part of a family.

Who do you think is very important when you chose chemistry as your career? My seventh grade science teacher, Mrs. Anne Graham. She told me that I would become a chemist, and then went on to encourage my interest. She and her husband, a student in Paper Chemistry, gave my family a tour of what was the ‘Institute of Paper Chemistry’ in Appleton, Wisconsin where I grew up. Mrs. Graham set me on a course, and I never waivered from it. That was lucky for me. I still think of Mrs. Graham often.

Do you have any tips for doing successful scientific research? Donald Cram, 1987 Chemistry Nobelist, was also a surfer. He once told me that success in Chemistry was similar to success in surfing. ‘Look out in the distance and learn how to predict which wave will break at the right time for you to ride it.’ Having that skill greatly increases one’s chance to work on a topic deemed to be ‘important’.

If you were not a chemist, which career would you choose? With perfect hindsight, I would like to have been a documentary filmmaker in the ‘Ken Burns’ style.

Prof. de Silva was born and raised in Colombo, Sri Lanka where he completed his undergraduate studies at the university. He moved to Belfast to enjoy PhD and post-doctoral studies at Queen’s University. He then returned to the University of Colombo for family reasons, before continuing his teaching and research career at Queen’s University. AP de Silva has been a visiting professor at various universities, including the Universite Catholique de Louvain, Chulalongkorn University and East China University of Science & Technology. He received the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Sensor Award in 2008 and the Inaugural International Award for Molecular Sensors and Molecular Logic Gates in 2012. He has also written a book ‘Molecular Logic-based Computation’ published by the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2013.

Prof. de Silva’s research interests include supramolecular photochemistry, which led him and co-workers to connect supramolecular/coordination interactions, fluorescence and photoinduced electron transfer (PET) in the mid-1980s. With his co-workers, he generalized fluorescent PET sensor/switch behaviour into a predictive design tool for measuring target concentrations. AP de Silva consulted with Roche Diagnostics when the OPTI blood gas and electrolyte analyzer was designed and built, which is now sold by Optimedical (optimedical.com) and Idexx Laboratories (idexx.com). Extension of the ‘fluorophore-spacer-receptor’ system led him and co-workers to invent the experimental field of molecular logic-based computation. Now we understand that sensors are the simplest examples of molecular logic devices. Over 550 laboratories worldwide have contributed to this field so far, by showing that the concepts and processes of computer science can be transplanted into molecules and chemical interactions/reactions.

What excites you most about the field of Molecular Logic? Excitement never lasts too long and is associated with the emotion-driven parts of our lives. While science is very enjoyable, it usually arises from our rational faculties, develops slowly and leaves lasting impressions. I find the field of molecular information-handling enjoyable because it is a natural progression from the human version, except on a far-smaller size-scale.

What is the greatest challenge you face in your research? The unknown. But then, isn’t that what draws some of us to research?

Many important discoveries are initially unexpected. Has it ever happened to you? The meaning of ‘initial’ and ‘expectation’ changes with time and person. I didn’t understand expectation at birth. I didn’t expect molecular logic until I had ruminated on what a physicist friend, Satish Namasivayam, had taught me about elements of digital electronics. The limits of computation experts at IBM didn’t expect molecular logic to be worthwhile even after its announcement and even though our brains are molecule-based. Thankfully, over 550 laboratories have contributed to the field since then upto now. Serendipity has never been too far from anything worthwhile that I’ve done.

How to balance the work and your life? I am grateful that the work required in research does not have to be mind-numbingly hard and continuous. Since research benefits greatly from reflective periods (including periods where the brain spools away on problem-solving unknown to us), considerable time is freed up for us to get on with our general lives.

What is your hobby? Is there any relationship between hobby and research life? I have been fortunate to play in an Irish traditional music band for nearly 20 years now. When musicians who read each other play in a circle, with the music bouncing around inside, there are moments of brilliant intensity which are truly exciting.

What are your suggestions to young generations to encourage them to consider a career in science? There are many aspects of life where truths have to be taken on trust, where truths depend on those in powerful positions or where truths have little meaning. All these situations are less than satisfactory. I like science because truths tend to get established by the cumulative critical efforts of many contributors. Even the subsequent modification of those truths occurs in a similarly considered way. There may be those in younger generations who wish for similarly dependable truths. Then they are scientists-in-the-making.

How do you define ‘a successful scientist’ and how to achieve it? For me, a successful person is someone who contributes to the success of others. Several old philosophies have discussed this view at length. Then, a scientist can be successful by contributing to how other scientists think, how other non-scientists think and how other people live (in that order).

Do you have any tips for doing successful scientific research? Learning bits about as many things as possible helped me to attempt bridging of disciplines.

Read the collection and stay up-to-date with new additions here.

The 6th International Conference on Molecular Sensors and Molecular Logic Gates (MSMLG 2018) will be held at Dalian University of Technology from 3-6 June 2018. At the meeting two of the Guest Editors of this themed issue, Engin Akkaya (Bilkent University) and Tony D. James (University of Bath), will receive MSMLG Czarnik Awards. In addition Youjun Yang (ECUST), Zhaochao Xu (Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics), Alexander Schiller (Friedrich Schiller University Jena) and David Margulies (Weizmann Institute) will receive MSMLG Czarnik Emerging Investigator Awards. For more details and registration details please see the conference web site (http://msmlg2018.dlut.edu.cn/).

*Reprinted with permission from Fluorescent Chemosensors for Ion and Molecule Recognition, Czarnik, A.W., Ed.; ACS Symposium Series 538; American Chemical Society: Washington, D.C., 1993; cover image. Copyright 1993 American Chemical Society.

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Win an APC voucher for RSC Advances in our Open Access Week competition

09 Oct 2017

To celebrate Open Access Week (23-27 October), we want to know why you think open access publishing is important to chemistry. To enter upload your thoughts to Twitter before 12 noon (UK time) on Friday 27 October for the chance to win an article processing charge (APC) voucher for RSC Advances.

How to enter

Simply tweet why you think that open access is important to chemistry and include the #RSCcomp hashtag.

You can tell us why in any way you choose, you could record a short video, draw or paint, write a song or poem or just write a short paragraph.

To be in with the chance of winning please upload your entry between Monday 23 October 2017 and 12 noon (UK time) on Friday 27 October 2017.

If you’re submitting a written entry, please write it on a PowerPoint slide or similar and then convert it to a JPEG before uploading it to Twitter. Please make sure the writing is legible in the image.

Selecting a winner

We’ll randomly select one winner, from all the entrants, on Friday 27 October 2017. We will contact them directly before announcing the result on our Twitter feed.

Getting you started

You can find out more about open access publishing on our website.

Here’s some questions to get you thinking about how open access is helping to advance the chemical sciences.

How do you benefit from having free and permanent unrestricted access to scholarly research?
If the licence allows users to download, copy, reuse, and distribute data provided in the original article what does this mean for future research?
Open access articles are made free to access online immediately and permanently in their final published form; what benefits does this offer?

If you have any questions about the competition please email publishing@rsc.org

Follow the competition

During Open Access Week you can follow the competition using the hashtag #RSCcomp.

More about RSC Advances

We deliberately push the boundaries with RSC Advances, always looking for new and unique ways to make the scientific developments we publish accessible to the widest possible audience.

Community-led, with an international team of associate editors, a dedicated reviewer panel and features such as article-based publishing, RSC Advances has been gold open access since 2017. This move has given researchers free access to a broader scope of high quality work and offered new, affordable open access publishing options to authors around the world.

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Royal Society of Chemistry partners with Publons to give peer reviewers more recognition

11 Sep 2017

We have partnered with Publons – a third-party reviewer recognition service – for a twelve-month trial on ten of our journals, so you can effortlessly keep a verified record of every review you complete. We really value your reviewing and editorial contributions and want to ensure you get more recognition for them.

How it works
When you submit a review to a participating journal you will be asked if you want to opt in to Publons, you can then instantly start building your verified peer review and editorial record to showcase the full extent of your contributions and influence in your field. Publons tracks your reviews without compromising reviewer anonymity, by default, only the year of the review and the journal title will be shown on reviewer profiles for our journals.

Benefits
Publons gives you access to a range of tools and data to benchmark your reviewing and editorial activity, and provides you with up-to-date verified evidence of your peer review contributions, which you can include on your CV and in funding applications. You also have the option to link your Publons record to your ORCID account to show your publication and peer review activity together. Publons is free for researchers.

Participating journals

Analyst
Chemical Communications
Chemical Science
Dalton Transactions
Journal of Materials Chemistry A
Journal of Materials Chemistry B
Journal of Materials Chemistry C
Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry
PCCP
RSC Advances

For more information about Publons, visit publons.com/benefits/researchers

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Publishing in parallel: when two societies work together

11 Sep 2017

Publishing in parallel. What does it mean and how is it relevant to the theme of Peer Review Week 2017? Well, the Royal Society (RS) journal Royal Society Open Science has been collaborating with the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) to jointly peer review and publish chemistry content since 2015. This ‘publishing in parallel’ model, with two societies working to publish one journal, is unique in scientific publishing.

Here, we collaborate again, to explain how the arrangement came about, how it works, and why we think it contributes to the transparency of science.

How does the collaboration work?

In short, the peer review and final editorial decisions of all chemistry papers submitted to Royal Society Open Science are managed by a team of chemistry editors and in-house staff at the Royal Society of Chemistry. Published papers appear with both journal and Royal Society of Chemistry branding in our collection of chemistry papers.

How is the collaboration unique?

This is the first collaboration between two societies publishing in one journal. Royal Society Open Science receives direct submissions, as well as transferred manuscripts from several Royal Society of Chemistry journals (RSC Advances, Chemical Science, Chemical Communications). It’s an exciting venture helping both societies build strategic links, while ensuring they retain a larger fraction of the high-quality content submitted to their journals. Royal Society Open Science gains from the expertise and insight of the editors, while the Royal Society of Chemistry is able to raise its already considerable profile in more multidisciplinary fields of research.

How did the collaboration come about?

One of the goals of the Royal Society of Chemistry was to facilitate networks to support community needs. In discussion with the Royal Society, both parties agreed collaboration would be a great way to achieve these aims. By handling the chemistry section, the Royal Society of Chemistry was able to offer its authors the option to publish open access in compliance with their funding requirements; the option of objective peer review with no restrictions on scope, article length or impact; the possibility of open peer review and open data publication, as well as more widespread visibility in an interdisciplinary scientific journal – all unique features the Royal Society of Chemistry was unable to offer its authors at the time.

How does the collaboration contribute to transparency in peer review?

Uniquely, the collaboration provides both societies an opportunity to see how another publisher works, and to openly discuss respective experiences regarding peer review and journals, which is not a given in the publishing landscape. This is of great benefit to both societies and can only improve services for authors and readers.

In particular, the collaboration provides authors with the chance to observe and compare the benefits (and challenges) of closed versus open peer review. While it is not mandated, Royal Society Open Science encourages open peer review for all authors and referees, including those submitting chemistry papers. Over the last year, almost three quarter of authors and well over half of reviewers have taken advantage of this option.

When both parties agree to open peer review, we publish the decision letters and reviewer correspondence alongside the final article. We hope eventually to be able to assign reports a DOI to allow them to be effectively cited, and to help researchers build their portfolio of outputs. The advantages of open peer review include improving the transparency of the published paper’s journey from submission to acceptance; it provides a mechanism for referees to self-identify and to gain recognition for their hard work (as does the journal’s integration with Publons); and helps
reviewers to compare and write better reports.

Finally, Royal Society Open Science has introduced Registered Reports, which will make research more transparent and help to fine-tune study design, as well as minimising some forms of publication bias. The Royal Society of Chemistry has been instrumental in raising awareness of these article types more widely among the chemistry community.

How has the collaboration been received by the chemistry community?

Both societies have been pleasantly surprised by the support and feedback the collaboration has received. Authors involved have been almost universally positive. The societies have benefited in a number of ways. Royal Society Open Science struggled to attract high-quality and diverse chemistry submissions before the collaboration. Now, a fifth of all manuscripts are submitted to the chemistry section. The transfer of scientifically sound research papers from the Royal Society of Chemistry to Royal Society Open Science is important in in giving all authors a platform to publish their work, especially if it helps people avoid repeating negative results, which previously have mostly ended up hidden away in lab books.

Our Chemistry Subject Editor, Professor Anthony Stace FRS, has also echoed the successes of the collaboration:

“As the subject editor with responsibility for chemistry submissions to Royal Society Open Science, I have found the experience of working with both the RS and the RSC to be very rewarding. As already noted, some Royal Society journals have in the past found it difficult to attract high-quality chemistry papers, but through this collaboration and the ability of the RSC to attract work of the highest standard, we have seen a significant reversal of that situation. Hopefully, some of this success will spill over into other Royal Society journals.”

What challenges does the collaboration face and how have you overcome them?

The chemistry community’s initial lack of familiarity with Royal Society Open Science was a challenge. However this has been addressed by ramping up joint marketing efforts; with the Royal Society of Chemistry providing details about the collaboration to chemistry researchers, and expanding the number of journals offering transfers, ensuring much greater visibility for Royal Society Open Science. As can be seen in the corresponding graph, a quarter of submissions received by the journal are now from the chemical sciences.

A future challenge will be the introduction of article processing charges by the journal. Authors will be supported during the transition to charging and APC by discounts and waivers for resource-limited authors, ad hoc waivers for invited pieces and the Royal Society of Chemistry’s own experience of the transition of RSC Advances; they will be helpful in supporting the process and ensuring it runs as smoothly as possible.

What’s next for the collaboration?

More of the same! As well as increasing the number of published papers, the editors are exploring opportunities to commission high-quality reviews and special collections, to raise the profile of researchers in emerging fields. We will also be launching an Advisory Board comprising internationally renowned experts, who will assist the editors in providing ad hoc advice. The first 18 months of the collaboration have laid great foundations for further success – watch this space!

View our collection of Chemistry articles or contact us for questions regarding Royal Society Open Science.

Andrew Dunn – Senior Publishing Editor, Royal Society

Alice Power – Editorial Coordinator, Royal Society

Michaela Muehlberg – Deputy Editor, Royal Society of Chemistry

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Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the German Chemical Society

31 Aug 2017

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2016, and this year marks the 150th anniversary of the German Chemical Society (GDCh). Thus, the RSC and the GDCh are not only among the oldest but also among the largest and most active chemical societies worldwide. When outlining plans to launch the German Chemical Society in 1867, August Wilhelm von Hofmann drew on his positive experiences at the Chemical Society in London in how such a society can stimulate its members and provide a driving force for research. A RSC–GDCh Joint Symposium is taking place on October 25, 2017 in London. Find out more.

There have been many close collaborations between researchers from both countries. Numerous researchers have spent time in the top laboratories in the other country forging bonds and building networks. Chemists from the UK have won some of the most prestigious awards bestowed by the GDCh, and similarly German researchers have won some of the top RSC prizes.

To commemorate the respective anniversaries the RSC and the GDCh and its publisher Wiley-VCH are making 150 articles freely available till the end of 2017. The selection provides some historical insights, a number of papers from prize-winning researchers, and a wide range of collaborative works across the years.

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Contributors to the ‘New Frontiers in Indian Research’ collection

09 May 2017

This profile offers a short introduction to the researchers who have contributed to this themed collection on the talent emerging from India and the excellent work that is being done by them. We would like to congratulate them and their teams on their achievements to date and hope they have continued success in the future as they continue their careers.

Read the collection now.

Dr Jyotishman Dasgupta received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 2000. He carried out his Masters thesis under the guidance of Prof. Amit Basak in the chemistry department. Subsequently he moved to Princeton University as a Hughes Stott Taylor graduate fellow where he carried out his Ph.D. work in the field of oxygenic photosynthesis under the supervision of Prof. Charles Dismukes. In 2006, he moved to UC Berkeley where he did his postdoctoral work with Prof. Richard A. Mathies. During his stay at Berkeley, he used femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy to study light-triggered conformation changes in photoactive proteins. After coming back to India in 2010, he set up his independent research group as an Assistant Professor (Reader) at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. The central theme of his reserach group is to probe dynamical structural events leading upto charge generation in molecular materials, in order to fabricate bio-inspired devices for solar electricity generation and organic photocatalysis in water.

Kanishka Biswas obtained his MS and Ph.D degree from the Solid State Structural Chemistry Unit, Indian Institute of Science (2009) under supervision of Prof. C. N. R. Rao and did postdoctoral research with Prof. Mercouri G. Kanatzidis at the Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University (2009–2012). He is an Assistant Professor in the New Chemistry Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore. He is pursuing research in solid state inorganic chemistry of metal chalcogenides, thermoelectrics, topological materials, 2D nanosheets and water purification. He has published 90 research papers, 1 book and 4 book chapters. He is an Young Affiliate of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and an Associate of Indian Academy of Science (IASc), Bangalore, India. He is also recipient of Young Scientist Medal-2016 from Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Delhi, India and Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award-2015 from The National Academy of Sciences (NASI), Allahabad, India. He is recipient of IUMRS-MRS Singapore Young Researcher Merit Awards in 2016, and the Materials Research Society of India Medal in 2017.

Shachi Gosavi obtained her Integrated M.Sc. in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India, and her Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology, USA. After post-doctoral work at the University of California San Diego, USA, she joined the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, India as a Reader where her group works on diverse problems in the fields of protein folding and dynamics.

Dr Suman Chakrabarty earned his B.Sc. degree in Chemistry from Presidency College, Kolkata, India in 2002 and M.S. degree in Chemical Sciences from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India in 2005. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 2010 (Advisor: Prof. Biman Bagchi). He was a postdoctoral research associated with Prof. Arieh Warshel at University of Southern California, USA (2009–2012). Subsequently Dr. Chakrabarty returned to India and started his career as an independent researcher in the Physical and Materials Chemistry Division, CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India as a Ramanujan Fellow. In 2017, he joined the School of Chemical Sciences in National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar, India as Reader-F. His current research interests are computational modelling and simulation of signal transduction and allosteric regulation in proteins, water mediated interactions and self-assembly related phenomena in soft-condensed matter systems with chemical and topographical heterogeneity.

Amit Paul was born in 1980 in Kolkata, India. He received his B.Sc. from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India, and his M.Sc. from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Mumbai, India. He completed his PhD in 2008 from the Department of Chemistry, University of Pittsburgh under the supervision of Prof. David H. Waldeck. He worked as an energy frontier research center (EFRC)-postdoctoral research associate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with Prof. Thomas J. Meyer between 2009-2011. Since 2011, he is working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal, India. His research interests include electrochemical supercapacitor, electrocatalysis, solid state proton conduction, electron transfer through molecular bridges, and proton-coupled electron transfer.

Dr Kaushik Chatterjee is an Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Engineering and the Centre for Biosystems Science and Engineering of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore (India). He received his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the Pennsylvania State University (USA) and completed a post-doctoral training jointly at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Institutes of Health supported by the US National Research Council Research Associateship Program. Currently he leads a research group working on a wide variety of biomaterials intended for use in biomedical devices and tissue scaffolds.

Kana Sureshan obtained his Master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Calicut, in 1996 and Ph. D. in Organic Chemistry from the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune in 2002. He carried out his postdoctoral research as a JSPS postdoctoral fellow at Ehime University, Japan (2002-2004), as a Research Officer at Dept. of Pharmacy and Pharmacology at University of Bath, U. K. (2004-2006) and as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at Max Planck Institute for Molecular Physiology at Dortmund, Germany (2006-2008). He joined Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram in April 2009. His research interests lie in the area of supramolecular chemistry, carbohydrate chemistry, natural product synthesis and chemical biology. He is an early career editorial board member of ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering. He is the recipient of Ramanujan fellowship, Swarnajayanti Fellowship, Young Scientist award of YIM-Boston, CRSI- Bronze medal and MRSI-Medal.

Ravi Venkatramani is a reader in the Department of Chemical Sciences, at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. Ravi obtained his Ph.D. in Physics in 2005 from the University of Rochester, NY, USA. His dissertation topic was on the theoretical modeling of nonlinear optical response of molecules in solution. Subsequently, during 2005-2007, Ravi was a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA, where he studied the molecular mechanism of DNA replication/repair by polymerase enzymes using classical and mixed quantum-classical atomistic simulations. From 2007 – 2012, Ravi was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Chemistry at Duke University, Durham, NC, USA which involved the modeling of charge transfer reactions in organic molecules and biological systems. At TIFR, Ravi`s research group develops and applies multi-scale modelling and high performance computational simulation methods to describe biomolecular structure and dynamics. Ravi is also developing theoretical formalisms to describe physicochemical processes in biological/molecular systems such as charge/energy transfer and optical response. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and serves as the secretary to the RSC-West India Section.

Prasenjit Mal was born in 1976 at Lokhesole, Bankura, West Bengal, India. He obtained his MSc degree from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur in 1999 and followed by PhD at Indian Institute of technology Kanpur in 2005. Then he undertook postdoctoctoral studies at University of Siegen in Germany (with Prof Michael Schmittel) as Alexander von Humboldt Fellow (2006-2007) and at University of Cambridge (with Prof Jonathan R Nitschke) in UK as Marie Curie Fellow (2008-2009). He started an independent research career at NISER Bhubaneswar since December 2009. Currently, he is working on the research area of role of multiple cooperative weak interactions (soft force relay) in organic synthesis and mechanochemistry.

Rajarshi Chakrabarti is a theoretical physical chemist by training. He excels in developing Statistical Mechanics based analytically solvable models and also makes use of computer simulations to explore interesting problems in the area of soft matter and chemical physics. He grew up in Kolkata, where he did his bachelors and subsequently masters in Chemistry specializing in Physical Chemistry. In 2003, Rajarshi moved to the Indian Institute of Science to pursue his Ph.D. in Theoretical Chemistry. After two stints of postdocs at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and University of Stuttgart, he started an independent career in 2013 at the Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. His favorite pass times include spending time with his wife and son and playing with his two pet dogs.

Sabuj Kundu obtained his PhD in 2009 from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA under the supervision of Professor Alan S. Goldman. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Professor William D. Jones at University of Rochester, NY (2009-11) and Professor Maurice Brookhart at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2011-13). He returned to Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur as an assistant professor in 2013. He received the DST-INSPIRE fellowship, India. His group is focused on various aspects of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis for sustainable chemical transformations.

Abhishek Dey was born in Calcutta where he did his BSc in the Presidency College. After completing his MSc at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, he did his PhD from Stanford University, CA, USA, in 2007 with Prof. Edward I. Solomon. After two years of postdoctoral work with Prof. James P. Collman he joined IACS in June 2009 where he is now an Associate Professor. He is the recipient of ACS division of inorganic chemistry young investigator award, SPP Young investigator award and he has been young associate of the Indian Academy of Science, Bangalore. He is currently serving as editorial advisory board member to Chemical Communications, ACS Catalysis and Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry. He is an inorganic chemist interested in generation, storage and transfer of energy. A combination of synthesis, self-assembly, spectroscopy, electrochemistry and electronic structure calculations are used to attain these research goals.

Biman Jana was born in West Bengal, India, in 1983. He received his BSc degree (2003) in Chemistry from Calcutta University, India and MSc degree (2005) in chemistry from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India. He is obtained his PhD in Theoretical Physical chemistry from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India with Professor Biman Bagchi as his advisor. He worked as a Research Associate with Professors Jose Nelson Onuchic from Rice University before returning to India in 2013 to join the faculty of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata, India. His group is working actively to explore the basic physical principles behind biological processes using theoretical concepts and computational techniques of Statistical Mechanics. One of the primary research areas is to explore the molecular origin of ice recognition by antifreeze proteins. In addition, his group is actively working on various different biological problems including mehanochemical cycle of motor proteins, protein folding/unfolding and hydrophobic hydration.

G. Naresh Patwari received his Ph.D. from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai in 2000 working on Intramolecular Vibrational Energy redistribution in substituted benzenes with Prof. Sanjay Wategaonkar. Following, he was JSPS postdoctoral fellow at Tohoku University, Japan with Prof. Naohiko Mikami, where he investigated the formation of dihydrogen bonds in the gas phase. In 2002 he moved to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign to work with Prof. James M. Lisy on ion-molecule complexes. Subsequently, in 2003 he returned to India to join the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry, where he is presently a Professor. His research interests include intermolecular interactions structure and reactivity. Recently, his group started working on understanding various intermolecular phenomena using internal electric fields. Apart from scientific endeavours, Naresh is also passionate about wildlife.

Anindya Datta was born in Calcutta and obtained his where he did his B. Sc. (Hons.) degree from Calcutta University, studying in Presidency College. His M. Sc. was from Calcutta University and Ph. D. was from Jadavpur University. He did his Ph. D. as a CSIR reseach fellow with Prof. Kankan Bhattacharyya in Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science. His postdoctoral research was with Prof. Jacob W. Petrich in Iowa State University. After a brief stint in Centre of Advanced Technology, Indore, he joined Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, where he is presently a Professor of Chemistry. He has been named as a recipient of Bronze Medal by Chemical Research Society of India and has been elected to the Fellowship of National Academy of Science, India. His research interest is in ultrafast processes in Chemistry and Materials Science.

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CSC100: Celebrating Canadian Chemistry Web Collection

21 Apr 2017

Back in 1918, the first national conference for chemistry in Canada took place in Ottawa, with about 200 attendees. This May, the 100^th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition will be a celebration of chemistry’s contributions to Canadian society and the impact of Canadian scientists on the field. Over 3000 abstracts have been received, a record.

Everyone will also be celebrating Canada’s 150^th birthday on the 1^st of July. Canada’s economy thrives because of chemical technologies related to resources, but Canadian chemistry discoveries have contributed to society and scientific knowledge in many other ways as well, such as the discovery of insulin, Rutherford’s explanation of radioactivity, Bartlett’s demonstration of the reactivity of noble gases, Herzberg’s study of radicals, Polanyi’s contribution to chemical kinetics, and Smith’s development of site-directed mutagenesis.

“Over the last 100 years, Canadian chemistry innovators have contributed to the myriad of products and services that underpin our quality of life,” says Dr. Rui Resendes, President of the Canadian Society for Chemistry. “We are part of a global community of ‘thinkers and tinkerers’ who through collaboration, innovation and perseverance will usher in the next generations of technologies that will enhance quality of life around the world while ensuring a sustainable future.”

In honour of these two anniversaries, we offer a special virtual issue of new research articles from Canadian chemists.* Authors from across the country, from Vancouver to Halifax, have contributed more than fifty articles on topics ranging from organic solar cells to microcoil NMR spectroscopy for microfluidics. We invite you to read through these articles to see what’s happening in Canada in this year of double celebrations.

Read the collection now.


Philip Jessop	Jennifer Love	Warren Piers	Doug Stephan	Andrei Yudin
Queen’s University	University of British Columbia	University of Calgary	University of Toronto	University of Toronto