December 12, 2008

'Recent Advances in Synthesis and Chemical Biology VII'

 

The 7th annual Centre for Synthesis and Chemical Biology symposium, ‘Recent Advances in Synthesis and Chemical Biology VII’ was held in the Health Sciences Centre, University College Dublin on Friday 12th December 2008.

The meeting was opened by Dr Philip Nolan, Registrar, University College Dublin and the speakers were Professor Frank Schroeder, Cornell University, USA; Dr John Brown, University of Oxford, UK; Professors Bernard Meunier, PALUMED, France; Sabine Flitsch, University of Manchester, UK; John Wood, Colorado State University, USA and Matthew Shair, Harvard University, USA. The scientific programme was organised by Professor Pat Guiry, CSCB.

During the lunch break, the speakers, sponsors and other invited guests were given a tour of the first phase of the new UCD Science Centre.

The poster session in the afternoon attracted the largest ever number of posters submitted to the CSCB symposium – there were 92 posters. A panel of three judges – Drs Stephen Connon, TCD; Cormac Murphy, UCD and Mauro Adamo, RCSI picked the top three posters. First prize was awarded to Patricia Fleming, a PhD student with Professor Donal O’Shea, UCD School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology for her poster ‘Selective Vinyl C-H Lithiation of Cis-Stilbenes’. Miriam Kennedy, of the Focas Institute, Dublin Institute of Technology came second with her poster ‘DNA-targeted Artemisinin-Acridine Hybrids as Antimalarial & Antitumour Agents’ and third was Colin Martin, a PhD student with Dr Sylvia Draper, School of Chemistry, Trinity College Dublin with his poster ‘Thiophene Containing Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons’. Poster winners received a cash prize and winners of first and second prize also received a year’s subscription to Nature Chemical Biology.

A new initiative this year was the ‘Write your Research’ competition, open to all CSCB 2nd-year PhD students. Entrants were invited to submit a short written piece covering a brief background to their research topic, the particular aim of their project, an update on results to date and a summary of future research plans for the remainder of their PhD. Caroline Barth, PhD student with Professor Pat Guiry of the CSCB and UCD School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, was judged the winner with her entry ‘Total Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Novel Leukotriene Analogues’.

This year’s symposium attracted over 200 delegates from the University of Leicester, Bangor University and Queen’s University Belfast as well as NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth, Dublin Institute of Technology, Institute of Technology Tallaght, UCD, UCC, TCD and RCSI. Representatives from Varian Ltd, Eli Lilly, Schering Plough, Premier Laboratories and Anachem were also in attendance.

The key sponsor was Eli Lilly and support was also received from Ballygowan, Anachem, Institut de Recherches Servier, Merck Sharp & Dohme, GlaxoSmithKline, Varian Ltd, Nature Chemical Biology, Premier, Millipore, Sigma Aldrich and Schering Plough.

2008 Symposium speakers

L-R in front - Professor Frank Schroeder, Professor Bernard Meunier, Professor Matthew Shair. L-R behind – Dr John Brown, Professor Sabine Flitsch, Professor John Wood. At back – Professor Pat Guiry, CSCB.


More News