 Highlighted as Hot Emerging Area in RSC blog
A paper by Timothy Donohoe et al. reviews recent developments in the synthesis of furan, pyrrole and pyridine heterocycles via cross-metathesis methods in this Emerging Area article.
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 On the cover of the European Journal of Organic Chemistry
The cover picture shows the careful installation of oxygen and nitrogen atoms into a complex environment, as illustrated by the city centre of Oxford. Hereby the atoms are already tethered to the settings via a crane, ensuring the right positioning of both atoms. The mobile crane can be removed after the functionalization leading to a selectively modified site. This regioselective aminohydroxylation of complex molecules was developed at the University of Oxford, which symbolizes the complex pattern of a molecule. Of course, this methodology can also be applied to other cities representing employment in the total synthesis of complex natural products. The Microreview by T. J. Donohoe et al. on p. 656 ff describes the development and recent improvments of the tethered aminohydroxylation for the stereo- and regioselective functionalization of alkenes and its application to total synthesis. The design of the cover image by Dr. K. Harrison is acknowledged.
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 Thomas Just Sørensen wins the Lundbeck Foundation Talent Prize
Thomas Just Sørensen a post-doctoral research associate working with Professor Stephen Faulkner has been awarded the Danish Lundbeck Foundation's Talent Prize. This prize is dedicated to scientists under 30 who have conducted particularly promising research within the biomedical or natural sciences. The prize is a personal award of DKK 100,000.
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 Poster Prize
Nicholas Evans, a graduate student from Paul Beer's group, has been awarded a prize for his poster at the RSC Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry Group Meeting, Bath University.
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 Poster Prize
Georg Fischer, a post doctoral fellow from Harry Anderson's group, has been awarded a prize for his poster at the RSC Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry Meeting held on 19-20 December 2011 at the Bath University.
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 Poster Prize
Dmitry Kondratiuk, a third year DPhil student from Harry Anderson's group, has been awarded the prize for the best poster at the RSC Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry Meeting held on 19-20 December 2011 at the Bath University.
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 Synthetic Histone Proteins Featured as an Angewandte Hot Paper
Work by Justin Chalker and Lukas Lercher from the BGD group in collaboration with Nathan Rose from the CJS group has led to the creation of synthetic chromosome-associated proteins (histones) that are able to act as proper mimics with so called writer/eraser and reader proteins for the first time.
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 RSC Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Sector Post-graduate Symposium
David Hewings in the Stuart Conway group was awarded the prize for the best talk for his presentation on bromodomain inhibitors at the RSC Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Sector Post-graduate Symposium held at the University of Cambridge. The photo shows him being presented with his prize by Dr Julian Huppert MP (MP for Cambridge).
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 RSC Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Sector Post-graduate Symposium
Tim Rooney in the Stuart Conway group has been awarded a prize for his poster on bromodomain inhibitors at the RSC Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Sector Post-graduate Symposium held at the University of Cambridge, Dec 2011.The photo shows him being presented with his prize by Dr Julian Huppert MP (MP for Cambridge).
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 Syngenta Workshop Winners
Each year Syngenta runs a workshop for final year doctoral students. As a university, Oxford had the best representation on the scheme, having four students selected out of the fifteen on the workshop; James Lee (Steve Davies Group), Ben Pilgrim (Tim Donohoe Group), Alison Hawkins (Darren Dixon Group) and Ben Ayers (George Fleet Group). At the end of the workshop, Syngenta awarded four Scholarships consisting of £1000 cash prize and £1000 of conference expenses; three of these went to James Lee, Ben Ayers and Ben Pilgrim. Alison Hawkins also won one of the runners up prizes worth £500.
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 Mystery of car battery's current solved
Chemists have solved the 150 year-old mystery of what gives the lead-acid battery, found under the bonnet of most cars, its unique ability to deliver a surge of current. A team of researchers from Oxford University, the University of Bath, Trinity College Dublin, and the ISIS neutron spallation source, have explained for the first time the fundamental reason for the high conductivity of lead dioxide.
A report of the research appears in this week’s Physical Review Letters.
‘The unique ability of lead acid batteries to deliver surge currents in excess of 100 amps to turn over a starter motor in an automobile depends critically on the fact that the lead dioxide which stores the chemical energy in the battery anode has a very high electrical conductivity, thus allowing large current to be drawn on demand,’ said Professor Russ Egdell of Oxford University’s Department of Chemistry, an author of the paper.
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 Chem Comm Inside Cover Image
A research collaboration between Stuart Conway's group, Oxford's Pharmacology Dept and St Andrews has been published in Chem Comm and is illustrated with a cover design. The work focuses on irradiation of a mixture of 4-methoxyphenacyl-caged (S)-glutamate and 4,5-dimethoxy-2-nitrobenzyl-caged γ-amino butyric acid (GABA) on neurons, at 260 nm, evokes selective photorelease of (S)-glutamate (Glu) whereas photolysis at 405 nm causes selective photorelease of GABA. The image was designed by Karl Harrison.
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 Clara Immerwahr Award
Dr Kylie Vincent has just received the Clara Immerwahr Award, conferred annually to a young female scientist at an early stage of her career for outstanding results in Catalysis Research. The award is associated with financial support of 15.000 Euro for a research stay in the laboratory of scientists of the UniCat catalysis cluster in Berlin, and intended to pave the way for establishing close collaborative links with UniCat.
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 BBSRC Biotechnology Young Entrepreneurs Scheme Winners
An Oxford team incuding two chemistry DPhil students from the Armstrong group (Bonnie Murphy & Philip Wulff) won the BBSRC Biotechnology Young Entrepreneurs Scheme (YES) competition. The team pitched their plan for a hypothetical business called Metachem Solutions to a panel of investors. The panel were impressed by their idea for using yeast to produce high value fragrance components (photo credit Martyn Poynor)
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 Green Talents 2011
Dr Yatendra Chaudhary, who is a Marie Curie Fellow working in Professor Armstrong group is one of 20 winners of the 2011 'Green Talents' Competition, for which he is now on a tour of German Universities. Green Talents 2011 is an International Forum for High Potentials in Sustainable Development Competition of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
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 Double Award at National Cancer Research Institute Conference
Jon Williams, a 3rd Year DPhil student under the joint supervision of Dr Angela Russell and Prof. Adrian Harris (Dept. of Oncology), was recently awarded two prizes at the National Cancer Research Institute Conference in Liverpool. Jon gave an oral presentation and presented a poster at the conference, and was awarded the Richard Hambro abstract prize and also the runner-up prize in the poster competition. The work presented focussed on the investigation of a series of phosphofructokinase enzymes, specifically up-regulated in tumour cells, and the development of small molecule inhibitors of these enzymes, as potential anti-tumour agents.
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 Salters Graduate Prize 2011
Congratulations to Emma Stuart who is recipient of a Salters Graduate Prize 2011. Emma is a 1st year D.Phil. student in Professor Compton's group having done her M.Chem. at Southampton Uni. She is working on nanoelectrochemistry. Emma is pictured with the Rt Hon David Willetts to her left and the Rt Hon Lord Butler of Brockwell, Master of the Salters’ Company, to her right. Rt. Hon. David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science who presented the Awards at the Ceremony and commented:-
"It’s been an honour to present these awards and join the Salters’ Institute in recognising the science talent we have in our schools and universities. I have been incredibly impressed by the standard of winners and hope many will go on to be leaders in the science field."
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 Lilly Prizes for Excellence in Organic Chemistry Research
The Lilly Prizes for Excellence in Organic Chemistry Research are awarded by Eli Lilly and Company Ltd. They are awarded for excellence in the first year of postgraduate study and are assessed on the quality of experimental work, written submission and viva voce at the point of examination for PRS transfer of status to DPhil. The winners of the Lilly prizes for the year 2010-2011 are:
David Baker (Supervisor: Professor Tim Donohoe)
Edward Emmett (Supervisor: Dr Michael Willis)
Inga Pfeffer (Supervisors: Professor Chris Schofield and Professor Ben Davis)
The following students have received commendations for their performance at the PRS interviews and the high standard of their experimental work and written submissions:
Phin Chooi (Supervisor: Professor Ben Davis)
Alex Gregory (Supervisor: Professor Darren Dixon)
David Hewings (Supervisor: Dr Stuart Conway)
Kayli Johnson (Supervisor: Professor Darren Dixon)
Charlotte Richards-Taylor (Supervisor: Dr Michael Willis)
Tina Sovdat (Supervisor: Dr Stephen Fletcher)
Hua Wang (Supervisor: Professor Ben Davis)
James Wilkinson (Supervisor: Professor Harry Anderson)
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 Congratulations on HNC Award
Tim Powell has successfully completed his HNC in Electronic Engineering. Tim joined the PTCL Electronics Workshop in 2007 on an Advanced Apprenticeship, his HNC course was part of his study programme. Tim is now a fully qualified team member.
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 Winners of Pfizer 2nd year DPhil Poster Competition
The annual Pfizer Mini-symposium / 2nd year DPhil Poster Competition took place on the 20th of October. Speakers at the symposium were Dr Igor Larossa (Queen Mary University), Dr John Fossey (University of Birmingham) and Dr David Blakemore (Pfizer). This was followed by a poster session where second year DPhil students presented their research. Cash prizes were awarded to Anne Brock (Steve Davies Group) and Ben Pilgrim (Tim Donohoe Group) for their poster presentations, with Smita Gunnoo (Ben Davis group) being the winner of the contestants prize (voted by the participants).
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 Woman of the Future in Science and Technology
Kylie Vincent received the 2011 ‘Woman of the Future in Science and Technology’ Award last night at the Women of the Future awards dinner in London. Created by Pinky Lilani OBE in 2006 with Caspian Media, the Women of the Future awards celebrate the next generation of British female talent. The Science and Technology award recognises younger women flourishing in the broad technology industries. Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal was a special guest at the awards ceremony and Cherie Blair is a patron of the awards.
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 Poster Prize at BCA PCG Winter Meeting
Matt Cliffe, a first year DPhil student in Andrew Goodwin's group, recently won the poster prize at the joint ISIS Crystallography User Group and BCA PCG/ IoP SCMP Winter Meeting. Matt's poster outlined his work on new approaches to amorphous structure solution from diffraction data.
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 Glasstone Fellowship in Inorganic Chemistry
The Department is pleased to announce that Dr Kirsten E. Christensen will begin a three-year Glasstone Fellowship in Inorganic Chemistry from November. She will investigate scientifically interesting molecular materials with non-periodic order which gives rise to complex diffraction patterns.
Dr Christensen, who will be based in the Chemical Crystallography
group, said: "During the Fellowship, I will develop the understanding of modulation from a chemical perspective and provide new approaches for dealing with molecular modulated materials."
"Understanding the continuum of structural states from simple
structures to modulated and incommensurate materials via twinned crystalline domains, atomic and molecular disorder, and multiple non-symmetry related molecules (Z’>1) will be at the forefront of research in crystallography for the next decade. Materials which exist along this continuum can vary from simple molecules to large molecular assemblies. These bizarre structures are only now beginning to be understood."
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 Dalton Transactions Editorial Board Chairman.
The RSC has announced that Prof Philip Mountford will be the next Chairman of the Editorial Board of Dalton Transactions, one of the world's leading inorganic and organometallic chemistry journals.
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 Latest results of the Dixon group published in Nature
The results of collaborative research between the Dixon group and the groups of Amir Hoveyda and Nobel prize winner Richard Schrock have been published in Nature. The paper titled, ‘Synthesis of macrocyclic natural products by catalyst-controlled stereoselective ring-closing metathesis’ describes the first reliable, practical and general approach for the efficient and highly stereoselective synthesis of macrocyclic alkenes by catalytic ring-closing metathesis; transformations deliver up to 97% of the Z isomer owing to control induced by an air stable tungsten-based alkylidene catalyst. Utility is demonstrated through the stereoselective syntheses of macrocyclic natural products epothilone C and nakadomarin A.
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