European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry
Stuart Conway has been designated by an International Selection Committee as the winner of the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry Prize for a Young Medicinal Chemist in Academia. This prestigious prize has been established to acknowledge and recognise an outstanding young medicinal chemist (<35 years) working in academia in Europe. The prize will be awarded at the XXIInd International Symposium on Medicinal Chemistry in Berlin.
more........
|
Cover article for C&EN
Recent publications from Carol Robinson's group and Justin Benesch's group have been highlighted in a cover article for C&EN. The article discusses the advances and application of mass spectrometry as a tool for structural biology. Where mass spectrometry answers questions that other methods can’t. Carol Robinson's research was recently published in Science and Justin Benesch in Structure (the cover was designed by Karl Harrison).
more........
|
CRL research highlighted in JACS spotlight and C&E News
Recent work by Andrey Protchenko in the Aldridge/Mountford groups together with collaborators from UCL and Monash University has been highlighted in a recent JACS spotlight and in Chemical and Engineering News. The work – which is the subject of a recent communication – describes the synthesis and structural characterization of the first example of a simple acyclic silylene, SiR2.
more........
|
Poster Prize at 2012 Spring Meeting of the British Crystallographic Association
Joe Paddison (a first year DPhil in the Goodwin Group ) won the RSC Solid State Chemistry Group Prize for his poster 'Frustration in beta-MnCo and MnO'
more........
|
Poster Prize at 2012 Spring Meeting of the British Crystallographic Association
Nick Funnell (a post-doc in the Goodwin Group) won the Rigaku Poster Prize for his poster 'How Molecules Prepare to Undergo a Transition: The Onset of Disorder in Solid Cyclohexane'.
more........
|
Alice Bowen wins JEOL Prize
Alice Bowen, a final year DPhil student in the Timmel group, was awarded the 2012 JEOL Student Lecture Prize at the recent RSC ESR spectroscopy meeting.
more........
|
ChemComm interviews Paul Beer
The RSC Journal ChemComm in its series of research profiles has interviewed Professor Paul Beer. He talks about his research and having published over sixty Chem Comms.
more........
|
Highlighted in PNAS
An article describing the work of two postdocs in the Chemistry Department has been highlighted in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. Kiminori Maeda and Kevin Henbest have shown that flavin-tryptophan radical pairs formed photochemically in the blue-light receptor protein cryptochrome have the properties needed to act as the primary sensor in the magnetic compass of migratory birds.
more........
|
Video of the 2012 Bakerian Lecture
See the video of Bakerian Lecture given by Professor Peter Edwards FRS at the Royal Society. Professor Peter Edwards FRS was awarded the Bakerian Prize for his decisive contributions to the physics, chemistry and materials science of condensed matter including his work on the metal-to-insulator transition. The Bakerian Lecture prize lecture is the premier lecture in the physical sciences. The Bakerian Lecture is delivered annually at the Royal Society in London and is accompanied by a medal and a gift of £1,000. The lectureship was established through a bequest by Henry Baker FRS of £100 for an oration or discourse which was to be spoken or read yearly by one of the Fellows of the Society on such part of natural history or experimental philosophy, at such time and in such manner as the President and Council of the Society for the time being shall please to order and appoint. The lecture series began in 1775.
more........
|
SCI's 1st National Retrosynthesis Competition Winners
Congratulations to David Daniels (Ed Anderson group), Robert Pullin and Christian Winter (both Tim Donohoe group) who were winners of the SCI's 1st National Retrosynthesis Competition. 10 teams, from both academia and industry (from 160 entries), were selected for the final based on an initial retrosynthesis target, which was held on 29th February at the SCI, London. Their presentation of the retro- and forward synthesis of Alsmaphorazine E, a second target molecule, was judged overall winner of the competition.
more........
|
On the cover of JACS
The results of a collaboration between the Goodwin Group, Chemical Crystallography and the ISIS facility have been highlighted on the latest cover of JACS (14th March 2012). The paper reports the discovery by Andrew Cairns in his part II last year of 'record breaking' negative linear compressibility (NLC) in KMn[Ag(CN)2]3. This counterintuitive property, where a material reduces its volume under hydrostatic pressure by expanding in one direction, is very rare but potentially industrially useful. Image thanks to Anthony Phillips (QMUL).
more........
|
Dr Alison Parkin - 2013 Biochemical Society Award
Dr Alison Parkin, Junior Research Fellow at Merton College and a member of Professor Armstrong group, has been awarded the 2013 Early Career Award by the Biochemical Society, for Bioenergetics and Metabolism.
more........
|
BBSRC highlights Professor Ben Davis recent research
BBSRC-funded researchers at the Universities of Oxford and York have found compelling evidence that almost half of the enzymes that attach sugar molecules to proteins might do so using a very rare type of chemical reaction. The finding could provide a route to designing new protein- and inhibitor-based molecules with a wide variety of clinical uses. This recent breakthrough in sugar chemistry could open the door to a new generation of synthetic medicines and diagnostic tools.
more........
|
Rob Paton Nature paper: Unravelling the biosynthesis of polyether natural products
Crystallographic and computational research, performed by workers in Singapore, Japan, the USA and the Paton group at Oxford has revealed the structure and function of an enzyme responsible for antibiotic synthesis.
The work, published this week in Nature, and highlighted in C & EN news, shows how Lsd19 catalyzes the formation of six-membered rings that deviate from the famous rules for ring-closure formulated by Sir Jack Baldwin at Oxford.
more........
|
Powering up fuel cells
A Edge Article published in Chemical Science by Sadagopan Krishnan and Fraser A. Armstrong has been highlighted in the RSC Journal Chemistry World. The article details a hydrogen fuel cell that uses carbon nanotubes to increase the amount of electrocatalyst attached to electrodes has been designed by UK scientists. This arrangement offers an order of magnitude improvement in power density over existing designs.
more........
|
2011 Highlight article in Journal of Physics B
A research paper by the Professor Softley group published in Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics last year has been selected by the journal's Editorial Board as a Highlight of 2011. Highlights are selected based on outstanding research and impact on the atomic, molecular and optical community, for which your article is highly-regarded.
more........
|
Einstein Professorship
Peter P Edwards, Head of Inorganic Chemistry, has been awarded an Einstein Professorship of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for 2012. The Einstein Professorships are awarded each year to 20 distinguished international scientists working at the frontiers of science and technology, for conducting lecture tours in China.
more........
|
Hot Article in Angew Chem
Yun Zhao and Clive Eley of Tsang group working in collaboration with Jingping Hu of Foord group have revealed an important role of acid sites on Nb2O5 (001) facet in photocatalytic decomposition of organics. The work is published as an hot article in Angew Chem
more........
|
Top 10 Paper in RSC Chemical Science
A paper highlighting work by Dr Andrew Schwarz in Philip Mountford's group (in collaboration with researchers from University College London and Massey University, NZ) entitled " The first Group 4 metal bis(imido) and tris(imido) complexes" has appeared in the top 10 articles most accessed for November 2011 in the RSC's premier flagship journal Chemical Science.
more........
|
BBC Quiz Champions
Three graduate students from Professor Dermot O'Hare's research group have scooped the Wall Night Winners trophy on BBC4 quiz show Only Connect. The 'Inorganic Chemists', comprising Saul Moorhouse, Charles Markland, and Henry Fisher, won a number of connecting walls on their way to beating a team of Oxford librarians in the final.
more........
|
CRL to star in BBC drama Silk
The chemistry department building is set to appear in the BBC drama Silk. The front of the building was rebranded to appear as a law court as the show's actors played their roles outside the building. The chemistry building has now appeared several times on TV most notably ITV's series Lewis.
more........
|
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.
more........
|
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.
more........
|
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.
more........
|
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.
more........
|