Conferences – Page 12 – Chemical Science Blog

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Challenges in Chemical Biology – one week until abstract submission deadline!

20 May 2011

This exciting event will review current research developments and highlight future challenges in chemical biology.

The recently released ISACS5 programme details a full schedule over the entire four days – take a look and discover those all important lecture titles from a series of outstanding plenary speakers, including Nobel Laureates Thomas Steitz and Venki Ramakrishnan.

Submit your poster abstract now – deadline 27 May 2011

Abstracts are invited for poster presentation within the themes of the conference:
• The ribosome
• The origins of life
• Synthetic biology
• Engineered enzymes
• DNA nanotechnology
• Chemistry of surfaces
• Next generation pharmacology

This is a fantastic opportunity to showcase your work – submit a poster before it’s too late!

Registration – early bird deadline 27 May 2011

Make sure you are part of this unique conference experience! To guarantee your place whilst making a great saving through our early bird discount, register online today.

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Recognising the best organic chemistry

12 May 2011

a trophy On Monday I attended the RSC Organic Division Awards Symposium at the University of Cambridge. Organised by Chemical Science Associate Editor Matthew Gaunt, the symposium recognised three 2010 RSC award winners for their impressive contributions to organic chemistry

First up was Bader Award winner Professor Kevin Booker-Milburn (University of Bristol, UK) who stressed the ongoing importance of curiosity in organic synthesis. He discussed his research on organic photochemistry, in particular how his group had managed to scale up organic photochemistry reactions using continuous flow reactors.

Next Hickinbottom Award winner Dr Matthew Clarke (The University of St Andrews, UK) split his approaches to controlling enantioselectivity in asymmetric synthesis into the sensible (asymmetric hydroformylation); the silly (using supramolecular synthesis to make libraries of catalysts); the scientific (rational design of hydrogenation catalysts); and the serendipitous (palladium-catalysed hydroxycarbonylations).

Last, but by no means least, Professor Dieter Enders (RWTH-Aachen, Germany), winner of the Robert Robertson award, discussed his work on asymmetric organocatalysis and revealed he has been an RSC member since before I was born.

Many thanks to Martin Swarbrick from the Organic Division for presenting the prizes, Matthew Gaunt for the organisation and, of course, the three speakers for delivering excellent and enjoyable lectures.

Also of interest:
N-heterocyclic carbene catalysed asymmetric cross-benzoin reactions of heteroaromatic aldehydes with trifluoromethyl ketones
Dieter Enders, André Grossmann, Jeanne Fronert and Gerhard Raabe, Chem. Commun., 2010, 46, 6282-6284

On the rate-determining step and the ligand electronic effects in rhodium catalysed hydrogenation of enamines and the hydroaminomethylation of alkenes
José A. Fuentes, Piotr Wawrzyniak, Geoffrey J. Roff, Michael Bühl and Matthew L. Clarke, Catal. Sci. Technol., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CY00026H

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Register now for ISACS meetings to receive early bird discount

15 Apr 2011

– Call for posters – deadline 6 May 2011
– Early bird registration – deadline 6 May 2011
– Registration – deadline 3 June 2011
www.rsc.org/isacs4

– Call for posters – deadline 27 May 2011
– Early bird registration – deadline 27 May 2011
– Registration – deadline 24 June 2011
www.rsc.org/isacs5

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ISACS 4 and 5- oral abstract deadline approaching

11 Jan 2011

Time is running out to submit your oral abstracts for two ISACS meetings taking place in 2011.

Submit by 21st January 2011 for the opportunity to give an oral presentation at:

ISACS4 – Challenges in Renewable Energy (MIT, Boston, USA) and ISACS5 – Challenges in Chemical Biology (University of Manchester, UK).

For more information, visit the ISACS website.

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Meet the General Chemistry team

16 Nov 2010

The General Chemistry (ChemComm, Chem Soc Rev and Chemical Science) team will be attending a number of conferences in 2011. Here’s where you can meet up with us next year:

: Robert Eagling (Editor) and Joanne Thomson (Deputy Editor)

Hybrid Materials 2011, Strasbourg, France, 6th-10th March 2011 – meet Joanne Thomson
Pittcon 2011, Atlanta, USA, 13th-18th March 2011 – meet Joanne Thomson
241st ACS National Meeting & Exposition, Anaheim, USA, 27th-31st March 2011 – meet Robert Eagling
First EuCheMS Inorganic Chemistry Conference, Manchester, UK, 11th-14th April 2011 – meet Robert Eagling
International Symposium on Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry, Brighton, UK, 3rd-7th July 2011 – meet Joanne Thomson
ISACS4: Challenges in Renewable Energy, Boston, USA, 5th-8th July 2011 – meet Robert Eagling
22nd International Symposium: Synthesis in Organic Chemistry, Cambridge, UK, 11th-14th July 2011 – meet Robert Eagling and Joanne Thomson
NT11 International Conference on the Science and Application of Nanotubes, Cambridge, UK, 11th-16th July 2011 – meet Joanne Thomson
GRC Organic Reactions & Processes, Rhode Island, USA, 17th-22nd July 2011 – meet Joanne Thomson
ISACS5: Challenges in Chemical Biology, Manchester, UK, 26th-29th July 2011 – meet Joanne Thomson
242nd ACS National Meeting & Exposition, Denver, USA, 28th August-1st September 2011 – meet Joanne Thomson
ISACS6: Challenges in Organic Materials & Supramolecular Chemistry, Beijing, China, 2nd-5th September 2011 – meet Robert Eagling

Please do let us know if you will be attending any of these meetings – we’d love to meet you!

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ChemComm Symposia – the journey

28 Sep 2010

As I set off for Japan and Korea I was eagerly looking forward to my first ChemComm symposium as Editor. At Heathrow I met up with Dr Luet Wong (University of Oxford), a speaker at the symposium, and the long trip to Osaka began (made even longer by a one hour delay for refuelling as we sat on the plane).

On arrival in Japan, the weather was grim, with low cloud and heavy rain – just what you need after a 12 hour flight. But on the plus side, the three hour journey from Tokyo to Osaka on the Bullet train was super efficient and on time to the second…just the Japanese way.

In Osaka it continued to rain contrary to the weather predictions. The hotel is fine; however, it amazes me, when WiFi is available in all McDonalds around the world, that a Sheraton hotel in a major city can not provide such a service.

Jet lag kicking in, we ventured out for dinner. With much choice, but everything in Japanese, the easy way is to just look at the pictures and plastic replicas. Despite the availability of a variety of Japanese restaurants, our final selection was a Chinese restaurant on the 12 floor of a department store. The food was great but after choosing a bottle of Chateau Bel Air, (from France and not Beverley Hills), the chilled glasses were sent back for room temperature equivalents. Alas, the wine was ice cold when delivered!

The final course of the meal was duck: four pieces of duck, enough for two, absolutely…. Unfortunately not, four pieces of duck skin, beautifully mounted on individual prawn crackers, great value at 2700 Yen (about £20).

Despite the duck, it was an excellent meal. Sensibly I retired to bed early in anticipation of a packed first day of stimulating lectures ahead…..

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Speakers announced for ISACS 2011

22 Sep 2010

Visit the ISACS website to find out who will be speaking at ISACS 4-6 in Boston, Manchester and Beijing.

New for 2011: We have a limited number of oral presentation slots available at ISACS 4-6. If you are interested in presenting your work at the meeting, submit your abstract for consideration by the conference committee via the website.

ISACS4: Challenges in Renewable Energy
ISACS5: Challenges in Chemical Biology
ISACS5: Challenges in Organic Materials & Supramolecular Chemistry

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Reflecting on ACS Boston

31 Aug 2010

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….

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Battling against the elements at the ACS Boston

24 Aug 2010

There are around 12000 people registered to attend the ACS meeting but it seems strangely quiet in the sessions. Maybe it’s the gale force winds and horizontal rain that are keeping people away but for me the draw of cutting edge chemistry is worth battling against the elements (and I don’t mean the chemical kind).

My lecture of the day came from Mo Movassaghi, who described his groups very elegant work on alkaloid synthesis. He has recently published an Edge article in Chemical Science and seemed delighted with the publication process at the RSC, so I look forward to receiving more top articles from him in the future.

Tonight I joined the Young Academic Investigators from the organic division for dinner. These ‘rising stars’ of organic chemistry were a very friendly and down to earth bunch and bearing in mind their session’s 8 am start tomorrow they sensibly headed off to bed at a very reasonable hour. Top tips from these leading minds:

1) Bad weather: you just need to wrap up and think of it as invigorating

2) Don’t trust a New Zealander’s sense of humour – you’ll never think of strawberries in the same way again…

Fancy reading Mo Movassaghi’s latest Edge Article on ‘Total synthesis of all (−)-agelastatin alkaloids’? Why not download it and read it here first – all Chemical Science articles are free to access until the end of 2011.

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ACS Boston – very big, very wet and very geeky

23 Aug 2010

It’s very early here on my second day in Boston at the ACS meeting. And it’s raining. Again. Thankfully the famed American hospitality extends to a complimentary umbrella in my room so with that and my trusty but hectic schedule I’m ready to go. Except that nothing starts for another hour and a half. Must try to adjust to the time zone tomorrow.

Day one for me started with the symposium in memory of Keith Fagnou. It was really touching to hear the speakers – Hartwig, Sanford, Yu, Jacobsen – talk with great warmth and affection both about Professor Fagnou as a person and his amazing contribution to C-H functionalisation chemistry. And of course they brought us up-to-date with their own chemistry, which, in the case of Jin-Quan Yu, involved quite a lot of table salt, which seems to very useful for promoting C-H activation by weak coordination.

My highlight for the afternoon was Laura Kiessling’s talk on carbohydrate polymer assembly. Carbohydrate polymers are the most abundant organic compounds on the planet and, amongst many other functions, are responsible for making the cell walls of tuberculosis mycobacteria really strong. So by understanding the polymerization process, we could be a step closer to working out how to eradicate the disease, which has infected a staggering one third of the world’s population.

It was also the first talk I’ve been to where the speaker has called her audience science geeks.

A geek – moi?

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