My last few days in Boston were very busy, hence the lack of blogging. But I’m now home, well rested and have had a chance to reflect on my first ACS meeting.
A particular highlight on Tuesday was the Young Academic Investigators’ session. There were around 63 nominations for the 16 places in this session and so I was expecting the best of the best and was not disappointed. Speakers included Tobias Ritter (Harvard), who discussed the challenges involved in developing late-stage fluorination chemistry of complex molecules for use as positron-emission tomography tracers. Representing UK organic chemistry was Rebecca Goss (East Anglia), who likened natural product synthesis to extreme sports, such as mountain climbing, as it requires the development of new tools and can often be gruelling.
On Wednesday, I switched from extreme sports to everyday household items as I listened to George Whitesides’ (Harvard) talk on simple technologies for analysis. I am quite familiar with his work from my time as editor of Highlights in Chemical Technology and it was great to hear him discuss in person his paper- and egg beater-based techniques.
A lot more complex but no less interesting was Alice Ting’s (MIT) Lilly Award presentation on how fluorescent reporters can be used to image molecular events, such as protein-protein interactions, in live cells. And from imaging cells to programming them, my day concluded with a POLY/PMSE plenary lecture from David Mooney (Harvard). His group is working on regenerative medicine and tissue engineering and uses materials either to carry cells or attract host cell populations in vivo. The materials then program the cells and disperse them and the cells go on to form new tissues as required. One example he highlighted in an amazing movie was how he could regenerate the blood vessels and save the limbs of mice with restricted blood flow.
On Thursday I caught the train over to Brandeis University and spent a very productive day meeting the faculty and learning about their work and their thoughts on publishing. And just to tease me and tempt me back to Boston, the weather cleared. As I made my way on the water taxi over to the airport, the sun sparkling on the buildings, I almost forgot the damp chill of the previous five days. And then it was back to a cold rainy Britain. Role on Anaheim….
