Recently John Haynes (RSC’s new Editorial Director) was in Addis Ababa shortly after they celebrated their Millennium (the Ethiopian calendar is more than seven years behind ours) to run a Strategic Online Journals workshop organised by INASP (International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications) and Bulletin of the Chemical Society of Ethiopia.  It was BCSE’s 20th anniversary and the workshop was attended by their staff as well as staff from 10 other journals based across sub-Saharan Africa. The workshop was a great success covering a number of key areas and reinforced positive relations with RSC.The workshop was held in conjunction with the 1st Congress of the Federation of African Societies of Chemistry (FASC; which was created in 2006 with support from the RSC). The meeting occurred on the 12th-14th September and was held at Addis Ababa University.  Currently there are six societies represented (Tunisia, Egypt, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa), but in the next few years there are plans to extend membership to all African Chemical Societies.  The event comprised of a scientific meeting covering topics by a speaker from each society as well as a speaker from the UK, USA and Lesotho.  The focus of the meeting was analytical chemistry while also covering types of environmental problems faced by African countries.  The next FASC meeting is planned for 2009 and should be hosted in Tunisia by the Tunisian Chemical Society, along with a third one planned to be hosted by the South African Society in 2011.
Also the registration is now open for ‘Antibiotics-Where Now?’ -  this is a meeting which will focus on the challenges of discovering new antibiotics.  It will take place in London, UK on the 21st January 2008.  For more details visit the website: www.rsc.org/antibiotics08.
An international event occurring on the 9th October is the Belgium public event entitled ‘When Chemistry Meets Nature’.  Dr Willy Van Brussel will give a talk describing some life saving products which have been derived from a wide range of natural products. Dr. Willy Van Brussel is corporate R&D manager of OmniChem; he has an interest in organic chemistry and natural products. For more details on this event and other events occurring in the future, why not visit the International Forthcoming events page: http://www.rsc.org/Membership/Networking/InternationalActivities/InternationalSections/InternationalEvents.asp   

International publishing Snapshot   

• Membranes do the trick -The team, led by Paul Taylor at the University of Warwick and Andrew Livingston at Imperial College London, used a membrane to keep catalysts in environments where they work best.
  www.rsc.org/Publishing/ChemTech/Volume/2007/10/Membrane_trick.asp
• Instant insight: Science and art in harmony Marc Aucouturier, Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France, and Evelyne Darque-Ceretti, Paris School of Mines, illustrate the benefit of a multidisciplinary approach to preserving our cultural heritage. www.rsc.org/Publishing/ChemTech/Volume/2007/10/Science_art_in_harmony.asp

Links and Useful Information   

• If you are looking for a scientific meeting then search the conference and events database: www.rsc.org/ConferencesAndEvents/conference/
• Travel Grants – Deadline for applications is the 1st October: www.rsc.org/ScienceAndTechnology/AwardsAndFunding/TravelGrants/index.asp

Last week in London saw the 1st UK-US Conference on Chemical and Biological Sensors and Detectors, organised by the RSC and run in collaboration with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Ministry of Defence (UK), the Home Office Scientific Development Branch (UK), US Department of Homeland Security, US Army and the Defence Threat Reduction Agency (US). Held from the 22nd-24th, most of the research presented was dominated by current threats to security, and how advances in sensor technology can help.  What made this conference so unique was the combination of scientists from both the UK and US, coupled with support and delegates from the military, government and research councils based on both sides of the Atlantic. ‘The Home Office welcomed the opportunity to expose aspects of its sensor research requirements in order to develop further interest from industry and academia’ commented Dr Andrew Bell (Home Office, UK), ‘it is at meetings of this nature that cross-fertilisation can occur to potentially provide step-changes in capability’. The interdisciplinary nature of sensors, crossing the boundary between chemistry and biology was apparent throughout the conference, and was highlighted in many of the talks and posters. Crucial to the sensing technology discussed was research concentrating on sensitivity, rapidity, high throughput, low false alarm rate and concentration. In addition, the importance of the sensing device itself, and conditions ‘in the field’ was highlighted, looking at the hardware, power supply and consumption, ruggedness, logistic burden, ease of use and understanding by the end-user of the technology. Such operational issues were discussed by the final keynote speaker, Prof. Duane Lindner (Sandia National Laboratories, USA), who questioned what we should be doing with the information such devices obtain, and what information do non-technical users need to be given in order to make a highly important decisions. Running after the conference (25th April) was a closed day of workshops. These were intended to encourage participants to concentrate on how science and technology could assist in the further development of the area of chemical and biological sensor technology, based partly on the ground covered on the preceding 2 days. To encourage discussion and brainstorming, 3 parallel breakout sessions were organised with conclusions from each being presented to all participants at the end of the day. ‘It was a good natured conference, conversations between speakers and delegates buzzed between sessions’ remarked Sheila Hardwick (Home Office Scientific Development Branch). The discussions to organise a 2nd conference in this important area of research clearly shows the success of this new UK/US collaboration.

Details of conference : http://www.rsc.org/Sensors07/ ‘Common sense for sensors’ Chemistry World Comment article: http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2006/August/Comment.asp

International publishing snapshot

• Instant insight: nanocrystals as sensors. Rebecca Somers, Moungi Bawendi and Daniel Nocera of MIT, US, explain how to solve a paradox: making quantum dots both bright and sensitive. http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/ChemTech/Volume/2007/05/nocera_insight.asp

• Retinal repair. Polymer scaffolds cold one day be used to fix damaged eyes. http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/cb/Volume/2007/6/Retinal_repair.asp

• Super solar cells. Supramolecular dyes could boost efficiency in solar cells, say scientists from the UK. http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/ChemTech/Volume/2007/05/super_solar_cells.asp

Links and useful information

• On a completely different note, the RSC launched a tough maths puzzle last week to highlight the difference in standards of maths abilities in undergraduate students from the UK and China. See details of its success and find out about the winner, David Brockley. http://www.rsc.org/AboutUs/News/PressReleases/2007/CompWinner.asp

• Faraday Discussions 139: The Importance of Polymer Science for Biological Systems (26 – 28 March 2008), University of York, UK. Next years Faraday Discussion will focus on two major strands (i) the physical chemistry of macromolecules as common ground between biology and polymer science, and (ii) problems associated with biocompatibility and biodegradability of polymers. Call for oral presentation abstract deadline, 25 May, 2007. www.rsc.org/FD139

• Looking for a scientific meeting? Search the Conference and Events database http://www.rsc.org/ConferencesAndEvents/fxsearch/