 The enzymes of beta-lactam biosynthesis is one of the most read articles in Natural Product Reports
A comprehensive review by Dr. Refaat Hamed, Dr. Michael McDonough, et al. (Schofield group) covering the mechanisms, structures and biocatalytic applications/biotechnological potential of the enzymes involved in beta-lactam biosynthesis
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 Dixon Group's Enantioselective synthesis of tetrahydropyridines is one of the Most Read Articles in Organic Letters
A recent paper from the Dixon group on the 'One-Pot Catalytic Enantioselective Synthesis of Tetrahydropyridines via a Nitro-Mannich/Hydroamination Cascade' is currently one of the most read papers in Organic Letters. The paper describes the one-pot synthesis of usefully protected tetrahydropyridine motifs via a cascade sequence using a combination of organo- and gold catalysis. The products are afforded in good yields and excellent enantioselectivities.
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 Dixon group paper on the total synthesis of Manzamine A is top of Most Read Articles in JACS
A recent paper from the Dixon group on the 'Total Synthesis of Manzamine A and Related Alkaloids' is currently the number 1 most read paper in JACS. The paper describes the development of an inventive and innovative route to this biologically important family of alkaloids - a natural product class with a rich history in Oxford. A stereoselective Michael addition, two different types of nitro-Mannich cyclization cascades, a Z-selective ring closing metathesis and a Stille coupling to a key late stage enol triflate intermediate, all featured to compact the route to 18 steps, the shortest to date
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 JACS Select
A paper from the BGD group has been featured in the latest JACS Select issue; 'The Chemistry-Glycobiology Frontier'. The paper describes a new biocatalytic method for attaching pure glycans to intact antibodies. This is the such first method and it has the potential to allow the development of finely-tuned mAb-based drugs.
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 Science Communication Prize
Martin Munzel, postdoctoral research fellow working with Chris Schofield has won the Klaus Tschira Preis, a German award for science communication. The prize is awarded annually for postdoctoral scientists who write a short article which explains their own resesearch to the wide public. The texts are judged both for their scientific quality and their writing style. The winning articles are published in the popular science magazine Bild der Wissenschaft. - photo: Ronald Frommann, copyright Klaus Tschira Stiftung
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 St Anne's Chemistry Fresher wins 2012 Royal Society of Chemistry Bill Bryson Prize
Jessica Ham, one of four new Chemistry students at St Anne's, has been awarded the 2012 Bill Bryson Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The prize is designed to encourage and recognise clear science communication in schools and colleges. Open to students aged 5-18, the competition attracts hundreds of entries annually from around the UK - in formats ranging from power point presentations to puzzles. Jessica's winning contribution - a comic strip entitled 'Flask in a Mask' - is to be recognised formally at a gala dinner in London later this term. Congratulations Jess!
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 New superconductor described in Nature Materials
Collaboration between Simon Clarke's group and Stephen Blundell's group in Oxford Physics and involving colleagues at Durham and the ISIS neutron and muon facility has resulted in the characterisation of a new high temperature superconductor in which lithium and ammonia have been intercalated into iron selenide. The layered form of iron selenide had already been shown to lose all electrical resistance, but only when cooled below about 8 degrees above absolute zero. The Letter in Nature Materials reports that the new intercalate retains superconductivity at temperatures five times higher. The use of the neutron and muon facilities at ISIS was key to characterising the structure by enabling the light atoms to be located and for measurement of some of the fundamental superconducting properties such as the penetration depth. "Since the discovery of these layered iron-based superconductors in 2008, we have been engaged in an intensive search to optimize the superconducting properties by changing the chemical composition of the spacer layer between the iron-containing layers", explained Simon Clarke. "Our new results are the first characterisation of an example in which a molecular species has been incorporated into the structure of such a material. Excitingly, we have discovered that in this case this leads to superconductivity up to 43 kelvin, higher than in any iron selenide-derived compound reported so far." "We have studied the superconducting properties using a variety of techniques," added Stephen Blundell. "In particular, results using radioactive particles called muons have shown that our new material is a very well-behaved superconductor. Most significantly, the new synthetic route which has now been developed opens up the possibility of further exploitation of related molecular species in this and other systems in order to greatly optimize the superconducting properties in this family."
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 Professor David Logan Foreign Fellowship
Professor David Logan has been elected as a Foreign Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences of India. The National Academy of Sciences, India was founded in the year 1930, with the objectives to provide a national forum for the publication of research work carried out by Indian scientists and to provide opportunities for exchange of views among them. Today it has about 1571 Members and 1579 Fellows including 29 Honorary Fellows and 88 Foreign Fellows.
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 Eisai Part 1 A Prizes
Our top second year students were honoured at the annual Eisai prize ceremony on Wednesday, 10 October. The prizes were awarded by Dr. Luis Castro, Head of Chemistry of the UK Discover NeuroScience Product Creation Unit, for outstanding performance in the Part IA exams. The winning students are Jonathan Mannouch (STC), Katrina Mennie (CCH), Rafal Wiewiora (PBK), Sarah Morrow (JES) and Alexander Bajjon (MER). Congratulations for a truly outstanding performance. The Department is very grateful to Eisai for funding and supporting these prizes.
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 MPLS Vacation Bursary Poster Prize
Sarah Morrow who did a vacation bursary project with Roel Dullens won joint first prize at the MPLS Vacation Bursary Poster competition. Sarah is a 3rd year undergraduate from Jesus College.
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 IRPC Collaborative Research Programme
After finalising an agreement earlier in the year, the £1M collaborative Research and Development Project on High Performance Polymers between the IRPC Public Company Ltd of Thailand and the groups of Prof.’s Foord and Moloney in Oxford is now underway. Three new research workers have joined the Department, with a main aim of the research focussing on the fabrication of functional polymer nanocomposites.
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 40 Years of Service
Congratulations and thanks go to Neville Baker who last week completed 40 years of service to the Department of Chemistry, working in the electronics workshop in the Physical and Theoretical chemistry Laboratory.
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 The GlaxoSmithKline 3rd Year Undergraduate Prizes
The Department of Chemistry was very pleased to welcome Dr Pan Procopiou to present the GlaxoSmithKline Prizes to the award winners: "The GlaxoSmithKline 3rd Year Undergraduate Prizes in Practical Organic Chemistry": Gareth Langley ( Part II supervisor, Professor Chris Schofield) ;Charlie McTernan (Part II supervisor, Professor Tim Donohoe); Jessica Thien (Part II supervisor, Dr Jeremy Robertson)
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The GlaxoSmithKline Awards in Organic Chemistry Part II
The Department of Chemistry was very pleased to welcome Dr Pan Procopiou to present the GlaxoSmithKline Prizes to the award winners: "The GlaxoSmithKline Awards in Organic Chemistry Part II": 1st prize David Shepherd (Part II supervisor, Dr Rob Paton); 2nd prize Philip Gerken (Part II supervisor, Dr Angela Russell)
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 Presentation of Athena SWAN Bronze Award
Athena SWAN Working Group receives Bronze award, pictured are members of the working group; Stephen Faulkner, Tim Softley, Nick Green, Rhiannon Evans, Charlotte Dodson, Grant Ritchie, Emily Flashman, Mark Brouard, Jenni Collins Asel Sartbaeva, Jessica Gilbert and Kylie Vincent.
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 Lecture Prize
Catherine Ball, a 3rd year student from the Willis group, has won a prize for one of the two best lectures at the Lilly Organic Chemistry Postgraduate Symposium 2012. Her talk described her work on a new copper-catalysed route to cinnolines.
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 On the cover of JCP
Research from the Doye group has been featured on the cover of the 7 October issue of The Journal of Chemical Physics. The cover depicts a kissing complex formed from two DNA hairpins.
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 Poster Prize
Bonan Liu, a 1st year DPhil student working in the Edwards research group, was awarded the third poster prize at the 19th Joint Annual Conference of CSCST-SCI in Reading. His poster reviewed his first year's work on methanol conversion to hydrocarbons via Molybdenum Oxide modified ZSM-5 zeolite catalysts for higher selectivity to aromatic products and discussed the potential mechanism of the reaction.
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 Poster Prize
Nazanin Rashidi, a 3rd year DPhil student working in the Edwards research group, was awarded the second poster prize at the 19th Joint Annual Conference of CSCST-SCI in Reading, for her work on preparation and characterisation of highly conducting Si doped ZnO thin films using spray pyrolysis technique for optoelectronic applications.
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 Poster Prize
Congratulations to Joe Abdalla, a second year DPhil student in the Aldridge group, who won the poster prize at the annual RSC Main Group Chemistry meeting in London, for his work on sigma complexes of carbene adducts of boranes and alanes
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 IOP Highlight: Mass-Selective Neutron Spectroscopy
Work undertaken by Andrew Seel of Peter Edwards' group and Michele Ceriotti of the PTCL has been highlighted by the Institute of Physics in their IOPSelect collection for September. In their article, published in the Journal of Physics Condensed Matter, they demonstrate the feasibility of deep inelastic neutron scattering (DINS) in acting as a mass-selective neutron spectroscopy, determining the width of momentum distributions and average kinetic energies for 7Li and 19F simultaneously. The results as determined by DINS for these weakly scattering nuclei are found to be within 5% of that calculated from quasi-harmonic density calculations.
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 Poster Prize
Congratulations to Rebecca Maksymowicz, a 3rd year DPhil student working with Steve Fletcher, who was awarded a prize for best poster at the 27th RSC Heterocyclic & Synthesis Group Postgraduate Symposium in Stevenage. Her poster presented a new method for catalytic asymmetric C-C bond formation using alkenes as nucleophiles.
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 Hot paper in Angewandte Chemie
A paper by Rebecca Musgrave, Rob Turbervill, and Mark Irwin from the Goicoechea group has been designated as a "Hot Paper" in Angewandte Chemie. The work describes the synthesis and characterisation of the first transition metal complexes containing anionic N-heterocyclic dicarbene ligands.
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 Chem Comm Interviews Steve Davies
Colleagues, students, zebra fish, fruit flies, worms and bankers - Steve Davies is happy to work with them all for the good of chemistry. He reveals why he is a very lucky man.
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 European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry Poster Prize
Congratulations to James Egleton, a 1st year Cancer Research UK-funded D.Phil student working with Angela Russell, who was awarded a poster prize at the EFMC 22nd International Symposium of Medicinal Chemistry in Berlin earlier this month. Just ten poster prizes were awarded from over 600 contributors. James presented his work on the development of specific, non-covalent colorimetric probes of a breast cancer biomarker.
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