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Newsletter 236, 26th
April 2013
Chemistry Update
Calendar of Events
Pre-Grasmere Meeting
Date: Wednesday 8 May
Time: 1.15pm - 6.15pm
Location: A101, A102, A122
Researchers’ Day
Date: Tuesday 21 May
Time: 10.30am - 6pm
Location: A101 & A102
Physics Departmental
Seminar
Title: Chemical Reaction Rates
from Ring Polymer Molecular
Dynamics
Speaker: Professor David
Manolopoulos, University of
Oxford
Date: Wednesday 15 May
Time: 2.15pm
Location: TBC
Inside this Issue
Chemical InterActions
Forensics Lecture
Date: Wednesday 22 May
Time: 4.30pm - 5.30pm
Location: A122
Date of Next Issue: 31st
May 2013
York Chemist Awarded National
Medal
2-3
Pigeons 1 Pest Controllers 0 3
Bruker Poster Competition 4
York Continues Innovative
Medicines Initiative (IMI) Chem21
Collaboration
5
Prof Duncan Bruce’s Visit to Chile 6
New Display Screens 7
Researchers’ Day
Staff Interviews 8-10
Chemistry Graduation 10
York@50 Sporting Challenge 11
Atmospheric Group BBQ
Research in Planet Earth
@OxfordChemistry Inspired by
@ChemistryatYork
Dr Duncan Macquarrie’s Paper
Selected for RSC Publishing
Pack
12
Sue Walton’s Retirement 12-13
Building Work 14-15
New Starters 15
Prof James Clark at British
Science Festival
Chemical InterActions Forensics Lecture
16
Page 2
York Chemist Awarded Prestigious National Medal
Dr Isabel Saez has been awarded the Cyril
Hilsum Medal by the British Liquid Crystal
Society. The award is in recognition of the
quality and creativity of her work on
supermolecular liquid crystals, in particular
her work on liquid crystals based on clusters,
dendrimers and nanoparticles. She is the
eighth recipient of the medal. The medal is
awarded for overall independent
contributions to liquid crystal science and
technology made in the ten years preceding
nomination, therefore the award, open equally to those from academic and industrial
backgrounds, is made to mid-career researchers who have made notable contributions to the
subject over a number of years.
The Cyril Hilsum medal, which was first awarded in 2006, recognises the key role played by Cyril
Hilsum, Head of the Malvern Displays Group, in the development of liquid crystal materials and
displays.
Isabel received the medal and gave
a short, post-dinner address at the
Annual Conference of the Society in
Cambridge where she said she was
“absolutely delighted to receive such
high recognition from the Society”
and thanked the members of the
Liquid Crystal group for their support,
inspiration and continued hard work.
And...
The recipients of the 2013 Gray Medal (Prof. Gleeson), Hilsum Medal (Dr Saez) and Young
Investigator Award (Dr S. Kaur) with Prof. M. Wilson, Chairman of the BLCS.
We also had to do some work, so when we headed to Cambridge, from 25-28 March, to
attend the 27th British Liquid Crystal Society Annual Meeting, a wide sample of the work carried
out in the Liquid Crystal group was presented. Tingjun Zhong (Year 2 PhD student with
Professor John Goodby) presented a poster. David Stewart (4th Year PhD student with Dr
Isabel Saez) presented a talk on "Supermolecular liquid crystals based on carborane clusters"
and Dr Emily Bevis gave a talk on "The effect of the aspect ratio on the dichroic properties of T-
shaped benzothiazole derivatives". For the presentation of her work on "Controlling the director
configuration in liquid crystal polymer particles", Kirsty Holdsworth (Year 2 PhD student with Dr
Verena Görtz) won the prize for best talk of the conference. This was the first time that Kirsty had
given an oral presentation to a conference audience.
PS. Eddie opened his eyes eventually!
Pigeons 1 Pest Controllers 0
Bruker Poster Competition
Twenty seven posters from our 3rd year PhD students were on display in the Department for this
year’s Bruker Poster Competition which took place on 16th April.
The Competition requires participants to display a poster about their research which is scored by
a panel of judges based on presentation, scientific content, and student discussion. The judging
panel consists of member of academic staff and PDRAs as well our guests this year, Dr Melanie
Britton from the University of Birmingham, and Dr Andy Gibbs from Bruker.
The event was well attended with many people commenting on the very high standard of the
posters. The judging panel eventually decided on four winners who were each awarded £400 by
Bruker to spend on research related items or activities.
A departmental seminar was held in the afternoon and talks were given by Professor Stephen
Withers, who gave his RSC Award lecture, and Dr Melanie Britton, our guest judge.
Dr Andy Gibbs presented the prizes to our four winners:
Katrina Bakker (JWG)
Stephen Bromfield (DKS)
James Firth (PAOB)
Daniel Raines (AKD/KSW)
Thanks go to Bruker for their sponsorship of the event, all those members of staff on the judging
panel, and all the students for taking part.
Page 4
From left to right: Prof Duncan
Macquarrie, Alan Reay, Ryan
Gorman, Lyndsay Ledingham
and Dr Rob McElroy
Several members of the Department of Chemistry travelled to Frankfurt at the end of March to
take part in the first IMI work package 2 conference, hosted by Sanofi at their impressive site.
The purpose of this conference was to allow greater cooperation between the academic and
industrial partners in the project, as well as encouraging the sharing of ideas and resources to
allow exciting new developments to be made. Representatives from almost all of the 6
pharmaceutical companies, 10 universities and 5 Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) involved
in Chem21 were in attendance at the two day event. York PhD students Ryan Gorman, Lyndsay
Ledingham and Alan Reay all presented their recent work to the consortium; this included new
green methodology for amide bond formation, investigations into palladium-catalysed cross-
coupling processes, and copper-catalysed routes to heterocyclic compounds. Presentations from
other universities and partner companies further highlighted the importance of collaboration
between industry and academia to solve the environmental and financial challenges of the future.
One example of an important future collaboration from York includes the use of the new pilot
plant facilities at Leeds University to synthesise stabilised palladium nanoparticles, which are
then intended for distribution to several industrial partners to test on their substrates. Another
example is to utilise the expertise of the company CatSci to optimise a novel route to
heterocycles, originally developed within the department at York. The next conference will be the
project’s yearly review held in Helsinki in September. There was even time for York’s
representatives to improve international relations with local business owners.
Page 5
York Continues Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI)
Chem21 Collaboration
Professor Duncan Bruce’s Visit to Chile
At the end of March, Professor Duncan Bruce visited the Universidad de Concepción in Chile,
where he delivered a postgraduate course entitled: 'Molecular Materials Chemistry: Structure-
Function Relationships and the Role of Non-covalent Interactions'. He also delivered a research
seminar: 'N-Heterocycles and their Metal Complexes in Liquid Crystals: Phosphorescence and
Heterogeneous Catalysis'.
The visit initiated a collaboration between Duncan's group and that of Dra Paulina Hidalgo in the
area of halogen bonding, and Dra Hidalgo will be visiting the group in July this year.
During the visit, he had the chance to visit the Nahuelbuta National Park, which is a forested area
full of araucania (or monkey puzzle) trees, some more than 2,000 years old.
Some of the students taking the postgraduate course.
A view in the Nahuelbuta
National Park.
Page 6
Page 7
Smart-eyed readers will have
already noticed that the display
screens in the foyer and at the
top of the stairs of the NMR
building have subtly changed.
The new displays are on the
University managed system
available in other departments
and colleges. The new displays
will show a mixture of centrally produced material and our own in-house material. Submissions
should still be made to either Tim Elsworth or Adrian Whitwood, however the content should
either be images (jpg, png, bmp, tiff format) or images and text. The clock is included
automatically by the controlling box, so there is no need to include it in submissions. We can
incorporate images which do not include a clock and images which may not have departmental
colours. As a guide images should have a height to width ratio of 1.78:1.
In the future we hope to be moving the foyer display to a larger screen above the porter's desk
and possibly adding additional displays in YSBL the coffee room and the undergraduate common
room.
New Display Screens
Researchers’ Day 21 May
Rob Thatcher and the Graduate School Office are organising the
upcoming Researchers' Day on the 21st May; an exciting opportunity
to see the variety of research going on in the department - be sure to
mark it in your diaries!
The first session will start at 10.30 and will include an introduction from Dr Andy Parsons (Deputy
Head of Department) and Professor Robin Perutz about a range of topics relevant to researchers
in Chemistry. The main focus of the day will be talks from post-doctoral researchers from across
the spectrum of chemistry. These will take place in two sessions, one in the morning and one in
the afternoon. There will also be a PhD poster session during lunch time, and a wine reception
following the talks.
Page 8
Group Administrator for the York Structural Biology Laboratory
Catherine Foster has joined the Department of
Chemistry as Group Administrator for the York
Structural Biology Laboratory, following Ruth
Wilkinson's departure in October 2012. Catherine's
University of York history started with two and a half
years in Physics, as a general administrator and PA
to the Head of Department. During this time she did
a wide range of admin and PA work, but focused
particularly on departmental communications and
support for the department's successful applications
for The Institute of Physics' Project Juno (a physics-
specific gender equality programme) and Athena SWAN Silver awards. Catherine was seconded
to Registry Services for most of 2012, working on statutory returns mostly for HESA and the
Student Loans Company, and delivering training to departmental users on the SITS student
record system. She started at YSBL in December 2012.
Prior to joining the University, Catherine's work history includes ten years in the law, and five in
the media, a highlight of which was working on the multiple-Oscar-winning "Shakespeare in
Love". Although only a lowly production assistant, she found her fifteen minutes (or rather fifteen
seconds) of fame when a shot of her hand made its way into the final version of the film. Let it
not be said we have no movie stars in the Department of Chemistry!
Interview with Catherine Foster
Interview with Dr Will P Unsworth
Research and Teaching Fellow (RJKT group)
I began working in York in November 2009, when I joined the RJKT group as a Postdoctoral
Research Associate. My exact role within group has evolved over the last three and a half years
but throughout this time the majority of my time has always been spent doing research in the lab.
I started out working on the total synthesis fiendish a natural product called ‘upenamide- a
molecule that I grew to love and hate in equal measure! Since the completion of this work I’ve
gone on to help start and develop a
number of new synthetic methodology
projects based on direct imine acylation,
rhodium-stabilised carbenoid reactions,
sigmatropic rearrangements and
spirocyclic quinone synthesis. As a
postdoc, the opportunity to develop and
realise these new ideas is without
question most enjoyable and exciting
aspect of the job. I have also been
fortunate to work with an amazing bunch
of people in the RJKT group and the
opportunity to supervise a number of talented PhD and MChem students is another real highlight.
This has involved co-writing project outlines, helping to shape the direction of the research and
generally putting out fires (not literally Moray!) when problems invariably arise. My other duties
include writing papers, proof-reading and making sure the lab runs smoothly - although my
colleagues in D216 may dispute the latter! I am also involved with the editing process for
Tetrahedron. I have recently taken on a new role, having accepted a position as ‘Research and
Teaching Fellow’ in March. In addition to the roles mentioned above I will have a number of
teaching responsibilities including teaching tutorials and workshops and supervising/marking
MChem students in York, industry and abroad. Having changed roles just as term was ending I
don’t yet know how I’ll balance the teaching and research aspects of the job but am excited to
find out what the new term brings. I have recently taken over from Vil as post-doc representative
on the Board of Studies so please contact me if there is anything you want to raise.
I was born and brought up in Coppull, a village near Chorley in Lancashire. I completed my
undergraduate chemistry degree at the University of Oxford and was fortunate enough to stay on
and complete my PhD with Dr Jeremy Robertson, working on Rhodium-nitrenoid methodology
and total synthesis. After 7 years down south I decided to move back up north and, despite being
on the wrong side of the Pennines, York seemed like a perfect fit for me and my wife Hayley. We
live across the city in Holgate and since moving to York the Unsworth family has expanded by
one, with the birth of our son Billy, who is now two. Away from work I enjoy relaxing with my
family, playing football for the Organic Chemistry 6-a-side football team and pub quizzes. I am
also quite partial to the occasional beer with friends.
Page 9
Page 10
Interview with Dr Alison Parkin
Anniversary Research Lecturer in Chemistry
I am a bioinorganic chemist and I joined the
Department as an anniversary lecturer in
October in order to establish my own group. I
am currently bringing electrochemistry,
enzymes and biochemistry research to life in
the basement of A block. In particular I am
fascinated by how bacteria derive energy from
unusual fuel sources like hydrogen. York is
proving to be an excellent place to conduct
these studies: I have found colleagues in
Chemistry, Biology and Physics who have complementary interests in how we can harness
biological catalysts to achieve green chemistry and I’m just getting some very interesting joint
projects off the ground. The departmental technical staff have also been fantastically supportive
and ingenious in helping me assemble my kit for electrocuting enzymes in glove boxes. Initially I
have a small teaching load, and will mostly be interacting with students in teaching labs, hopefully
inspiring them with the wonders of d-block chemistry and redox reactions
Having grown up in East Yorkshire, I am enjoying my return ooop North after 12 years in Oxford.
I was an undergraduate and graduate student at Jesus College, before becoming a Junior
Research Fellow and Inorganic Chemistry Tutor at Merton College. My husband, Chris, has just
started as a lecturer in Material Science in Sheffield and we are enjoying exploring the
restaurants and bars of York, and being inundated by friends and family who want to stay so they
can visit the Railway Museum.
Chemistry Graduation 10 July 3pm
A reminder for any staff members wishing to attend the Chemistry
graduation ceremony on Wednesday 10 July at 3pm, to please let Luiza
know by *Wednesday 1 May*.
Don’t forget the Degree Day Drinks will take place after the ceremony between 5pm and 6pm.
Page 11
York@50 Sporting Challenge
The York@50 Sporting Challenge is part of the University’s 50th anniversary. It is a staff, student
and alumni collaboration aiming to fundraise for the Snowball Plantation, a Scout outdoor activity
centre at Stockton on the Forest and Achieving Excellence Bursaries to ensure that students
from lower income families, where no other support is available, get a helping hand to make the
most out of the York experience. For more information see http://www.yorkspace.net/york50
Angela Longman has entered for the 10K Fun Run. Helen Burrell
and Adrian Whitwood are entering the 52 mile cycle ride as a team.
There is also a 25 mile cycle ride, family cycle rides and a 5K Fun
Run. These are sponsored events and the aim is for each
department to raise £250. Rather than try and get individual
sponsorship, would anyone else be interested in joining us as part of
a Chemistry Team? If so, please contact either Adrian or Angela.
Atmospheric Group BBQ Research in Planet Earth Article
Oxford Chemistry have tweeted their admiration of the
ChemistryatYork twitter account and have made it their
goal to get as many followers!
@OxfordChemistry Inspired by @ChemistryatYork
Planet Earth Online have published an article about the Atmospheric Chemistry
Group’s recent paper (D. Kocak, M.Z. Ozel, F. Gogus, J.F. Hamilton & A.C.
Lewis, ‘Determination of volatile nitrosamines in grilled lamb and vegetables
using comprehensive gas chromatography - nitrogen chemiluminescence
detection’, Food Chemistry, 2012, 135, 2215-2220) showing that chargrilling
meat over badly prepared coal may contaminate it with dangerous levels of
chemicals that can cause cancer.
Page 12
Dr Duncan Macquarrie’s Paper Selected for RSC
Publishing Pack
Dr Duncan Macquarrie has had a paper selected to be featured in the RSC Publishing Pack and
Chemistry World, the RSC online news section.
Dr Duncan Macquarrie's article ‘Alkali silicates and structured
mesoporous silicas from biomass power station wastes: the
emergence of bio-MCMs’ has been identified as suitable for inclusion
in the weekly RSC Publishing press pack, which is sent to science
journalists. A news item about the research has also been included in
the online news section of Chemistry World.
Dr Duncan Macquarrie researches in Materials Chemistry in the Green Chemistry Centre of
Excellence.
Sue Walton’s Retirement
Sue Walton, long-time technician in the teaching labs and also previously in the research labs,
retires at the end of April 2013. A small celebration took place at coffee time on 17 April
Several of the presents reflected Sue's liking for cuddly toys.
We all wish Sue a long and
happy retirement.
Fellow teaching lab technician Emma
Dux had drawn some cartoons
depicting some of the humorous
incidents in Sue's teaching lab career,
and several of these were mounted in
a poster-size picture.
Building Work
Work progresses on the Chemistry building sites. On the new F-block site, steelwork has
been going up very quickly...
Page 14
...while on the IGAC site footings have been completed (since this photo was taken steelwork
has appeared).
New Starters
Helen Parker, Green Chemistry PhytoCat PDRA, working for Prof James Clark.
Extension number: 4547, Room: B020, Email: h.parker@york.ac.uk
Dr Jon Agirre, Postdoctoral Research Assistant, working for Prof Keith Wilson and Dr Kevin
Cowtan in YSBL on the 'automated building of carbohydrate models' project.
Extension number: 8253, Room: B/K264, Email: jon.agirre@york.ac.uk
Dr Ana Casas Garcis, Process Development Unit Technician, working for Dr Mark Gronnow in
the Biorenewables Development Centre (BDC).
Extension number: 565361, Room: BDC 2.52, Email: ana.casas@york.ac.uk
Juliet Burns, External Relations Officer, working for Dr Fabien Deswarte in the Biorenewables
Development Centre (BDC).
Extension number: 561578, Room: BDC 2.89, Email: juliet.burns@york.ac.uk
Dr Leonie Jones, Green Chemistry Education and Training Associate, working for Prof James
Clark and Louise Summerton.
Extension number: 4478, Room: B016, Email: leonie.jones@york.ac.uk
Page 15
Professor James Clark at the British Science Festival
About My Planet and Chemistry World (RSC) reported on a presentation by Professor James
Clark (Chemistry) at the British Science Festival which showed how food waste can be turned
into useful chemicals when subjected to high levels of microwaves.
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