ACS: From fables to legends at an awards session
Posted by Vikki on Tue 21 Aug 2007Categories: Conferences , News | 1 Comment
Using stories to make science accessible to all seems to be a theme at the sessions I have attended at the ACS meeting.
At this afternoon’s session of the ACS for the Arthur C Cope and Arthur C Cope Scholars Awards a (rather large) room full of delegates met to listen to outstanding scientists like David MacMillan who received an award for his work towards the synthesis of complex chiral molecules. MacMillan compared the efficiency of the techniques he uses and their potential to the legend of the grains of rice on a chess board.
Another young investigators such as Janis Louie gave a comprehensive and instructive talk on the uses of Nickel catalysts in cycloadditions.
The session was wrapped up by the colour-blind, award winner, Jean Fréchet, who talked on macromolecules at the interface between organic and materials chemistry. The talk was split in to two parts to showcase the work of his research group. The first part looked at using organic electronics to make monolayers that can self-assemble and act as electrical transistors.
The second part of the talk was based more on what I would consider to be ‘characteristically’ the work of Fréchet – developing dendritic macromolecules for use as cancer chemotherapeutics.
