 GlaxoSmithKline Prizes 2011
The GlaxoSmithKline prizes were presented to the award winners on Thursday 13 October. The GlaxoSmithKline Award in Organic Chemistry Part II was awarded to James Egleton (Supervisor, Dr Angela Russell).
This prize is awarded to the highest ranked Oxford graduate (based on their combined Part I and Part II performance) who continues into postgraduate research in the CRL in the same calendar year.
The GlaxoSmithKline 3rd Year Undergraduate Prizes in Practical Organic Chemistry were awarded to: Rebecca Cross, Daniel Finnemore and Kelvin Jackson.
These three prizes are awarded to 3rd year undergraduates who have shown excellence in their experimental work and written submission.
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 On the Cover of Journal of Molecular Biology
A pair of articles from the Benesch group and collaborators from the
University of Toronto have been highlighted on the front cover of the
Journal of Molecular Biology and in an associated commentary. These
back-to-back publications describe the structure and dynamics of
alphaB-crystallin, a protein associated with a variety of protein
misfolding disorders, including Alzheimer's Disease. Photography by Karl Harrison
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 Winners of MPLS Vacation Bursaries Poster Event
On the 5th of October, the division held its first Vacation Bursaries Poster Event bringing together all of the current EPSRC Vacation Bursaries awardees and other students in the division holding vacation bursary awards over the summer. The event provided a great opportunity for students to share their project work, foster networking and gain experience in presenting their work to others. The event was attended by Professor Nick Woodhouse (Acting Head of the MPLS Division), Professor Robert Taylor (Associate Head of the MPLS Division (Academic)) and Professor Tim Softley (Chairman of Chemistry and the outgoing Associate Head of the MPLS Division (Academic)) who were impressed by the high standard of all the work presented. A cash prize for the best project poster was awarded to Rosalyn Falconer (Chemistry) with Catrin Campbell-Moore (Mathematics) and William Coulton (Physics (Astrophysics)) sharing second prize.
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 Highlighted in Dutch Magazine for Physics
The Aarts and Dullens groups feature in the latest issue of the 'Nederlands
Tijdschrift voor Natuurkunde' (Dutch Magazine for Physics), having been
interviewed by the Magazine earlier this year. The Magazine portrays the
careers of Drs Aarts and Dullens, who met as undergraduates and studied
together for both their MSc and PhD degrees. After short postdocs in Paris
(Dr Aarts) and Stuttgart (Dr Dullens), they now continue to work together in
the Experimental Soft Matter Group at Oxford.
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 Otto Bayer scholarship winner
Tim Gatzenmeier, a student in Steve Davies's group, has recently been awarded an Otto Bayer scholarship as part of the Bayer Fellowship Program.
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 RSC Poster Prize
Ben Pilgrim, a DPhil student at the beginning of his third year from Tim Donohoe’s group, has been awarded a poster prize at the 26th Postgraduate Symposium of the RSC Heterocyclic and Synthesis Group. The symposium was held at the AstraZeneca site at Alderley Edge on 22nd September. Ben’s poster was entitled the ‘Palladium-Catalyzed Synthesis of Isoquinolines’.
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 SET Awards (Science, Engineering & Technology Student of the Year) Winner
At a ceremony in London, Ben Martindale, 4th year chemist from St Johns won the "Best Chemistry Student Award" for his project on "What constitutes the flavour of garlic" with Richard Compton. Oxford Chemist Tim Hele, Exeter was also shortlisted and was specially commended in the ceremony for being the only student ever (in any subject category) to make the shortlist of 3 in two successive years.
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 Hot article in RSC Catalysis Science & Technology
Aaron Chan of Tsang group and James Cookson of Johnson Matthey have reported a new class of Pd nanocatalysts modified with interstitial carbon atoms, the catalysts are demonstrated to be highly active and selective in liquid phase hydrogenation reactions. This work is selected to showcase the success collaboration between university and industry in catalyst development.
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 Poster Prize at Coordination Chemistry Discussion Group Meeting
Caroline Knapp, a DPhil student in the Goicoechea group, was recently awarded a poster prize at the annual Coordination Chemistry Discussion Group meeting, held this year at the University of East Anglia. Caroline's poster presented her work on the reactivity of group 15 Zintl ions.
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 Chinese Society of Chemical Science Presentation Prize
Miss Luyun Jiang, a DPhil student from the Foord group, was awarded the second prize of oral presentation for excellence in Chemical Research at the 18th joint annual conference of "the Chinese Society of Chemical Science and Technology in the UK (CSCST-UK) and the SCI Chinese UK Section" held in Cambridge on 17 September 2011. The title of her presentation is "Ag Nanoparticles for H2O2 Detection by Electrochemical Method".
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 Alex Cresswell Wins Prize for Best Talk
Alex Cresswell, a third year DPhil student from Steve Davies’ group has been awarded a prize for the best presentation at the Syngenta Doctoral Training Awards Symposium for his talk on “New Methods for Stereoselective Nucleophilic Fluorination”. The meeting took place at Jealott’s Hill International Research Centre on 7-8 September 2011 and the prize was judged by a panel of Syngenta chemists. The two day event comprised a selection of postgraduate talks followed by an invited lecture from Professor Steve Davies.
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 Charlotte Hollingworth wins Symposium Prize
Charlotte Hollingworth, a second year DPhil student from Veronique
Gouverneur's group has won the Kosterlitz Prize for the best
Medicinal/Bioorganic Communication at the 11th Annual RSC Fluorine
Subject Group postgraduate meeting. The meeting took place at the
University of Aberdeen on 8-9 September 2011 and the prize was judged by
the organiser of the meeting Prof. Matteo Zanda and a panel of four
plenary speakers ( Prof. Santos Fustero, Prof.Ryan Gilmour, Prof.
Melanie S. Sanford and Dr John Slattery)
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 Poster Prize Winner
Congratulations to Cathy Rushworth, a third year DPhil student in the Vallance group, who was recently awarded a Poster Prize at the 2011 RSC Analytical Research Forum, held in Manchester at the end of July. Cathy presented her work on applying the technique of cavity ring-down spectroscopy to the analysis of microfluidic samples.
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 Chemical Science cover
Research from Harry Anderson's group is featured on the cover of Chemical Sciences. Matthew Langton achieved the template-directed synthesis of this porphyrin nanoring catenane during his Part II project.
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 IUCr Poster Prize winner
Congratulations to Callum Young from the Goodwin Group for receiving a prize for his poster at the recent International Union of Crystallography XXII Congress and General Assembly. The IUCr meetings are held every three years and bring together crystallographers from across the world, and was this year held in Madrid. Callum's poster presented some of his recent work on the local structure of magnetite below the Verwey transition, and won the IUCr prize for the best undergraduate or graduate poster in the physics category.
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 Highlighted by EuroNews
A new paper by Sartbaeva and colleagues links the question on connections between the geometry of the zeolite frameworks and their physical properties, and explains compression behaviour of zeolites in the analcime group. A deeper understanding of the rules governing the formation of zeolite structures may one day allow us to synthesise structures with specific properties on demand and such new insights into the physics and geometry of frameworks are an important step in this direction.
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 Dalton Transactions Hot Article
Computational research by Jennifer Green and Georgina Aitken has unveiled the mechanism by which U(III) complexes can reductively couple CO. A zig-zag dimeric intermediate is formed which can proceed to an ynediolate complex, or, in the presence of excess CO, reacts to give either deltate or squarate complexes.
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 THE Women in Science article
Nicola Davis (3rd year D Phil) has writen an article for the Times Higher Education discussing a new initiative to improve the support for women in UK science. This means grant funding is based on the accreditation with Athena SWAN Charter for Women in Science. This is a scheme which was set up to recognise universities that promote and support the careers of women in science, and awards accreditation at three levels: bronze, silver and gold. The article includes an interview with Emily Flashman, winner of one of the four prestigious 2011 L'Oréal-Unesco Fellowships for Women in Science, and Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow in our department.
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 Women in Science Article in Nature
"In Pursuit of female chemists" an article by Carol V Robinson has been published in Nature. Carol offers her personal reflections from her career in chemistry about why women leave science. Carol mentions that Chemistry needs new female role models and a less macho culture to appeal more to the next generation of young women.
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 Norman Heatley award for Professor Ben Davis
Recently some of the world’s leading and emerging scientists in the field of chemical biology gathered in Manchester, UK, for ISACS5: Challenges in Chemical Biology. At on session conference chair Hagan Bayley awarded his University of Oxford colleague Professor Ben Davis the Norman Heatley award. This award recognises and promotes the importance of inter- and multi-disciplinary research between chemistry and the life sciences through independent work. Professor Davis presented his award lecture on sugars and proteins, covering some of the mechanistic lessons he has learned from sugar biology.
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 On the cover of Chem Soc Rev
A review written by David Payne and Russell Egdell along with collaborators in Bath and Dublin has recently been highlighted on the front cover of Chemical Society Reviews. The review describes recent theoretical and experimental work which has led to a revision of Orgel's model for the stereochemical activity of lone pairs in post transition metal compounds. The ideas developed in the review now feature in Oxford's 3rd year Inorganic Chemistry undergraduate course.
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 Coordination Chemistry Discussion Group Poster Prize Winner
Congratulations to Richard Scott from the Mountford group on being awarded a Poster Prize at the 2011 RSC Coordination Chemistry Discussion Group meeting recently held at the University of East Anglia. Richard presented some of his recent results on the chemistry of new olefin polymerisation catalysts complexes, work carried out in collaboration with LANXESS Elastomers B.V
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 Hot article in Angewandte Chemie
A recent paper based on work by Jochen Niemeyer in Professor Simon Aldridge's group and carried out in the CRL has been selected as a ‘hot article’ by Angewandte Chemie. The paper describes the synthetic, structural and reaction chemistry of boron-containing analogues of classical allenylidene ligand systems.
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 Chemical Science Cover
Research from the Ben Davis group has been featured on the cover of Chemical Science. The image depicts the key findings in the
associated publication in which multiple methods for the conversion of cysteine to dehydroalanine and its use in covalent protein modification are described. The cover artwork was designed by Yuya A. Lin of the Ben Davis group.
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 Support from the Oxford Invention Fund
Professor Mark Moloney has received funding from the Oxford Invention Fund to support the development of next generation antibiotics, using natural products to guide the process. He said: “The discovery of new antibiotics has become critically important because of the emergence of bacteria resistant to current drugs. The urgency of the task is underlined by the recent E. coli outbreak in Germany in June 2011.
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