10th European Symposium on Organic Reactivity

The scientific focus of the ESOR 10 symposium will be organic reactivity, both in solution and in the gas phase. Particular emphasis will be given to the following topics: enzymatic and biomimetic catalysis, gas-phase reactions, supramolecular chemistry, transition metal catalysis, advanced materials, chemical modelling. Modern physical-organic chemistry, in fact, is not a circumscribed branch of chemistry, but rather a general strategy for the solution of chemical problems by physical methods and tools. It has the flexibility to deal with research problems in chemistry, physics, material science, molecular biology, molecular medicine and molecular dynamics.
Source:w3.uniroma1.it/esor_10/

19th International Symposium : Synthesis in Organic Chemistry

The Organic Division of the RSC is pleased to announce the 19th International Symposium on Synthesis in Organic Chemistry, which will be held at St Catherine's College, Oxford, from Monday 18 July to Thursday 21 July 2005.

Participants will arrive on the afternoon and evening of Monday 18 July, and the conference sessions will begin on the morning of Tuesday 19 July.

The symposium is the latest in this biannual series, with meetings held alternately in Oxford and Cambridge, the first meeting having been held at Oxford in 1969. Synthesis in Organic Chemistry provides an international showcase for the core area of organic chemistry - synthesis. The symposium covers all aspects of contemporary organic synthesis and provides a forum for the ever more exciting methodologies and strategies that continue to emerge.

BioScience2005 - from genes to systems

BioScience2005 is the second Biochemical Society Annual Meeting and will comprise Symposia, Plenary Lectures, Medal Lectures, Oral Presentations and Poster Sessions. BioScience2005 will also provide a mix of Industrial Workshops, Policy Sessions, Education Workshops, Science and Society Sessions, Research Colloquia and Independent Scientific presentations.

Over 1500 research scientists from universities, research institutes and industry, working in biochemistry and molecular biology are expected to attend BioScience2005.

SECC, Glasgow is the UK's largest integrated exhibition and conference centre and the venue for a series of annual BioScience meetings. It is a world-class facility set in one of Europe's most vibrant cities. Glasgow's international airport is only a 15-minute drive from the SECC, providing direct access to and from major European and North American cities. Glasgow sits on the nationwide transport system with fast rail and road access to all the UK's principal cities.
Source:www.bioscience2005.org/

Screening Procedures

The ultimate goal of producing combinatorial libraries is to discover compounds that have some desired behavior and associated with this behavior some potential to serve as a drug. A major challenge in developing a library of compounds is screening the library for activity and identifying the chemical species responsible.
A reliable high-throughput assay is essential to successfully screen a combinatorial library.
The sets of compounds produced by combinatorial chemistry are generally referred to as libraries, which depending on how the solid-phase is handled, may be either mixtures or individual compounds. There are a range of options for testing the libraries in a biological assay:
1. Test mixture in solution: All the compounds are cleaved from the beads and tested in solution. If the resin beads were intimately mixed, it is not possible to test the products separately, but rather as a mixture. If activity in a pharmacological screen is observed it is not possible to say which compound or compounds are active. In order to identify the most active component, it is necessary to resynthesize the compounds individually and thereby find the most potent. This iterative process of resynthesis and screening is one of the most simple and successful methods for identifying active compounds from libraries.
2. Test individual compounds in solution: A second method is to separate the beads manually into individual wells and cleave the compounds from the solid-phase. These compounds can now be tested as individual entities.
3. Test compounds on the beads: A third method for screening is testing on the beads, using a colorimetric or fluorescent assay technique. If there are active compounds, the appropriate beads can be selected by color or fluorescence, ‘picked’ out by micromanipulation and the product structure, if a peptide, determined by sequencing on the bead. Non-peptide structures would need to be identified by one of the tagging methods. Screening on the bead may be an inappropriate method for drug discovery, as the bead and linker present conformational restrictions that may prevent binding to the receptor. Furthermore for pharmaceutical applications compounds will be invariably need to act, and thus ideally need to be tested in solution.

National Organic Chemistry Symposium

The National Organic Chemistry Symposium (NOS) is the premier event sponsored by the Division of Organic Chemistry of the American Chemical Society to highlight the recent advances in organic chemistry research. The 39th Symposium consists of 13 invited lectures, plus the 2005 Roger Adams Award winner. The lectures will be presented during morning and evening sessions at the elegant Kingsbury Hall auditorium. As in the long tradition of the past NOS Symposia, the 39th symposium features a very distinguished and impressive list of speakers.
Source:www.conferences.utah.edu/nos2005/index.html

14th European Symposium on Organic Chemistry

The symposium programme will feature new trends, methods and achievements in asymmetric and natural product synthesis, catalysis, and nano-science techniques, and in bio-organic and medicinal chemistry related topics. New aspects of environmentally benign synthetic methods will also appear in the programme. Plenary and section lectures will be presented by established workers in the field as well as introducing the younger generation of European talent.
Source:www.helsinki.fi/esoc14/

Molecule of the Week - Acrylamide

First found in food in 2002, acrylamide is a natural byproduct formed when foods high in starch and carbohydrates are cooked at high temperatures. It was originally feared to be a carcinogen, however ongoing research has found that in low doses, such as those found in fried or broiled foods, acrylamide does not pose a threat.
Source:www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/home.html

10th European Symposium on Organic Reactivity

The scientific focus of the ESOR 10 symposium will be organic reactivity, both in solution and in the gas phase. Particular emphasis will be given to the following topics: enzymatic and biomimetic catalysis, gas-phase reactions, supramolecular chemistry, transition metal catalysis, advanced materials, chemical modelling. Modern physical-organic chemistry, in fact, is not a circumscribed branch of chemistry, but rather a general strategy for the solution of chemical problems by physical methods and tools. It has the flexibility to deal with research problems in chemistry, physics, material science, molecular biology, molecular medicine and molecular dynamics.

What is "Custom Synthesis"

Custom Synthesis ( in German Auftragssynthese) is used for the production of organic drug compounds to the specification of the client for the their specific development and research needs.
Custom synthesis projects typically have a well-defined synthetic procedure requiring quantities of 1 - 100 g which support ongoing development efforts. Additional tasks include:

• Scale-up an existing literature- or customer-applied synthesis
• Optimization of the chemical procedure for better efficiency
• Designing a new synthesis

Who can use "custom synthesis" service?

You are probably in charge of procuring standards for the bioanalytical department of your firm. You might be a forensic scientist, analytical chemist, pharmacologist or medicinal chemist, working in a drug-testing lab, clinical research firm, and university or research institute. You would prefer to buy the compound you need from a catalog, but you have drawn a blank. Your study depends on the acquisition of the compound and you are prepared to invest to solve the problem, depending on your expectation and technology.

Molecule of the Month: Dichlorodifluoroethane

Dichlorodifluoromethane is an inert gas that has a long history acting as a refrigerant, allowing us to stay cool in the summer, and as a spray propellant for important consumer substances. Dichlorodifluoromethane owes many of its desirable properties to its C-F bonds and synthesis involves organofluorine chemistry. Despite many uses, the gas has been isolated as a major contributor to ozone depletion and it is currently banned for production in the United States. Dichlorodifluoromethane use in the United States is currently regulated and substitutes for dichlorodifluoromethane are promising, although they too have their drawbacks.

Read more: http://www.wou.edu/~avorder/Refrigeration.htm

What is Coenzyme Q10?

Coenzyme Q10 (also known as CoQ10, Q10, vitamin Q10, ubiquinone, or ubidecarenone) is a compound that is made naturally in the body. A coenzyme is a substance needed for the proper functioning of an enzyme, a protein that speeds up the rate at which chemical reactions take place in the body. The Q and the 10 in coenzyme Q10 refer to parts of the compound’s chemical structure.

Coenzyme Q10 is used by cells to produce energy needed for cell growth and maintenance. It is also used by the body as an antioxidant. An antioxidant is a substance that protects cells from chemicals called free radicals. Free radicals are highly reactive chemicals that can damage important parts of cells, including deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). (DNA is a molecule inside cells that carries genetic information and passes it from one generation to the next.) This damage may play a role in the development of cancer.

Coenzyme Q10 is found in most body tissues. The highest amounts are found in the heart, liver, kidneys, and pancreas. The lowest amounts are found in the lungs. Tissue levels of coenzyme Q10 decrease as people get older.

History

CoQ10 was first isolated from beef heart mitochondria by Dr. Frederick Crane of Wisconsin, U.S.A., in 1957. The same year, Professor Morton of England defined a compound obtained from vitamin A deficient rat liver to be the same as CoQ 10. Professor Morton introduced the name ubiquinone, meaning the ubiquitous quinone. In 1958, Professor Karl Folkers and coworkers at Merck, Inc., determined the precise chemical structure of CoQ10: 2,3 dimethoxy-5 methyl-6 decaprenyl benzoquinone, synthesized it, and were the first to produce it by fermentation. In the mid-1960's, Professor Yamamura of Japan became the first in the world to use coenzyme Q7 (a related compound) in the treatment of human disease: congestive heart failure. In 1966, Mellors and Tappel showed that reduced CoQ6 was an effective antioxidant. In 1972 Gian Paolo Littarru of Italy along with Professor Karl Folkers documented a deficiency of CoQ10 in human heart disease. By the mid-1970's, the Japanese perfected the industrial technology to produce pure CoQ10 in quantities sufficient for larger clinical trials. Peter Mitchell received the Nobel Prize in 1978 for his contribution to the understanding of biological energy transfer through the formulation of the chemiosmotic theory, which includes the vital protonmotive role of CoQ10 in energy transfer systems.

In the early 1980's, there was a considerable acceleration in the number and size of clinical trials. These resulted in part from the availability of pure CoQ10 in large quantities from pharmaceutical companies in Japan and from the capacity to directly measure CoQ10 in blood and tissue by high performance liquid chromatography. Lars Ernster of Sweden, enlarged upon CoQ10's importance as an antioxidant and free radical scavenger. Professor Karl Folkers went on to receive the Priestly Medal from the American Chemical Society in 1986 and the National Medal of Science from President Bush in 1990 for his work with CoQ10 and other vitamins.

Read more: faculty.washington.edu/~ely/coenzq10.html

Third European Symposium on Combinatorial Sciences

The Third European Symposium on Combinatorial Sciences, Eurocombi-3, is scheduled for 18-21 July 2005 and will be held in Winchester, UK. The programme of events aims to cover all aspects of combinatorial science in chemistry and biology, including material sciences, medicinal sciences, high throughput technologies, sciences of organic and inorganic chemistry, and catalysis.
This meeting will give a good opportunity to scientists from all over the world to meet in Winchester, a magnificent city full of cultural heritage, and to establish an inspiring atmosphere for the exchange of ideas.
The symposium will comprise of lectures (including a student presentation session), poster sessions and a full industrial exhibition under the same roof.

Diversity Oriented Synthesis

Set to become a major worldwide conference on Diversity Oriented Synthesis, the inaugural conference and exhibition will be held in Waltham, Boston, 22-23 September 2005. With easy worldwide access and inexpensive registration fees a high degree of interest is anticipated. Early registration is therefore recommended as delegate numbers will be limited.
Combinatorial chemistry has evolved from the concept of producing massive numbers of compounds to smaller, more focused libraries. Now is a good time to review the current thinking and state-of-the art in Diversity Oriented Synthesis.
Source: http://www.selectbiosciences.com