Nürnberg: A Showcase for European Chemistry
2010; Wiley; Volume: 16; Issue: 31 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1002/chem.201001987
ISSN1521-3765
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Medical Research and Treatments
ResumoKick off for the 3rd European Chemistry Congress: All eyes have been on South Africa over the past few weeks and the football World Cup. From all over the world fans gathered to cheer on their teams and now fans of chemistry will be descending on Nürnberg (Nuremberg) in Bavaria (Germany) for the next major international event, the 3rd European Chemistry Congress, which takes place between August 29 and September 2, 2010. This conference entitled “Chemistry—The Creative Force” is co-organized by the European Association of Chemical and Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS) and the Gesellschaft Deutsche Chemiker (GDCh), the hosting chemical society. In the words of Pavel Drašar (the Czech Chemical Society representative for ChemPubSoc Europe and a member of the organizing committee), it will be “a place for meeting, a place for exchanging ideas and a place for seeing the thrilling future of chemistry”. 1 Nürnberg itself is a large modern city with a mediaeval flair; the old city is surrounded by a 5 km long city wall and the Imperial Castle crowns the hill above the old town. It is situated on the Pegnitz River and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal. It is famed for its Christmas market, associated with its traditional gingerbread (Lebkuchen), sausages and handmade toys. The Nürnberg Exhibition Centre, in which the congress will be held, is also the home of the Nürnberg International Toy Fair, the largest in the world, appropriate as “playing” with atoms and molecules is one of the fascinating features of chemistry. The ties between chemistry and Nürnberg are notable, and among those with a close association with the University of Erlangen–Nürnberg (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen–Nürnberg) are the Nobel Prize winners Emil Fischer (for his work on sugar and purine synthesis) and Eduard Buchner (for his discovery of cell-free fermentation), and Justus von Liebig, founder and editor in 1832 of the journal Annalen der Chemie, one of the oldest and historically most important journals in the field of organic chemistry worldwide. In 1998 it was amalgamated with several other leading national european journals into the European Journal of Organic Chemistry, a journal of ChemPubSoc Europe. 1 The scientific organising committee, which is headed by François Diederich (chairman of the Editorial Board of Angewandte Chemie and member of the Editorial Board of Chemistry—A European Journal) and Andreas Hirsch (member of the International Advisory Board of the European Journal of Organic Chemistry) have ensured that participants at the conference will be treated to a diverse range of innovative chemistry from an impressive array of speakers. The congress will focus on seven hot topics: 1) Innovative Materials; 2) Resources and Environment; 3) Supramolecular Systems; 4) Catalysis; 5) Molecular Life Sciences; 6) Analysis, Manipulation and Simulation; and 7) Advances in Organic and Inorganic Chemistry. Each of these hot topics will be introduced with a plenary lecture and will be divided into three or four main symposia. There will also be several special symposia, including Highlights in Nuclear Chemistry, Highlights in Inorganic Chemistry, Highlights in Organic Stereochemistry, and Highlights in Physical Chemistry and Foundation of a EuCheMS Physical Chemistry Division, to name but a few. In addition, to satisfy as many authors as possible asking for an oral presentation, five extra “jam” sessions have been organised. 1 During the opening ceremony C. N. R. Rao (a member of the Editorial Board of Chemistry—A European Journal; for his most recent paper see Chem. Eur. J. 2010, 16, 2700) will be presented with the August-Wilhelm-von-Hofmann-Denkmünze (Gold Medal, see picture), the prestigious award of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) for his outstanding contributions in the field of solid-state chemistry. Professor Rao is the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India and the honorary President of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore. Recently, Chemistry—An Asian Journal published a special issue in honour of C. N. R. Rao on the occasion of his 75th birthday. Previous winners of the award include Francois Diederich, who was presented with the award at the 1st European Chemistry Congress in Budapest in 2006, and K. C. Nicolau, who was awarded the medal in 2008 at the 2nd European Chemistry Congress in Turin. The European Sustainable Chemistry Award, sponsored by EuCheMS, will also be presented for the first time ever during the opening ceremony. This award was created in order to raise the profile of sustainable chemistry, but also to encourage innovation and competition in this field of chemistry. The first winner of this award will be Matthias Beller, Director of the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis in Rostock, for his work in the area of homogeneous catalysis, in particular in the environmentally friendly transformation of small molecules into bulk and fine chemicals. Professor Beller is also one of the Chairmen of the Editorial Board of ChemSusChem, a new journal of ChemPubSoc Europe that has just received an impressive first impact factor of 4.767. The opening ceremony will be immediately followed by two plenary lectures, introducing the topics “Molecular Life Sciences” and “Innovative Materials”. Barbara Imperiali (member of the Editorial Board of Chemistry—A European Journal) will talk about “Fluorescent Tools for Chemical Biology”, while Klaus Müllen will talk about “Macromolecules, Assemblies, Particles—A Discovery Journey in Materials Synthesis”. Michael Grätzel will introduce the topic “Resources and Environment” with a talk on the “Molecular Photovoltaics and Mesoscopic Solar Cells”. The plenary lectures for the “Supramolecular Chemistry” and “Catalysis” symposia will be held by E. W. “Bert” Meijer and Hans-Joachim Freund, respectively, with talks entitled “Non-covalent Synthesis of Complex Supramolecular Systems”, and “Model Catalyst Design: A Perspective at the Atomic Level Department of Chemical Physics”, respectively. The “Advances in Organic and Inorganic Chemistry” symposium will be introduced with a plenary lecture from Lechosław Latos-Grażyński, who will talk about “Aromaticity Switching in Porphyrinoids and Heteroporphyrinoids” and Joshua Jortner will highlight the topic “Analysis, Manipulation and Simulation” in plenary lecture on “Chemical Dynamics at Extremes: Table-Top Nuclear Fusion Driven by Cluster Coulomb Explosion”. Conference issue of Chemistry—A European Journal: As part of our continued commitment to raise the profile of chemistry in Europe, we invited various speakers and symposia convenors at the Congress to contribute an article to Chemistry—A European Journal. All articles were peer-reviewed and the result is this issue, which contains five Concept Articles [Helmuth Möhwald (p. 9330) and Piero Baglioni (p. 9374) from the symposium Nanoparticles, Bert Weckhuysen (p. 9340) from the symposium Spectroscopies for the Future, Magnus Rueping (p. 9350) from the symposium Catalysis in Organic Transformations and Frank Würthner (p. 9366) from the symposium Molecular Materials], two Minireviews [Mike Orfanopoulos (p. 9414) from the symposium Physical Organic and Inorganic Chemistry and José Vicente Sinisterra Gago (p. 9422) from the symposium Biocatalysis and Biomaterials] and two Reviews [plenary speaker for the topic Catalysis Hans-Joachim Freund (p. 9384) and Katharina Landfester (p. 9398) from the symposium Polymer Sciences]. 1 In addition, there are seven Communications and 23 Full Papers from invited speakers, convenors, and other selected speakers in the following symposia: Nanoparticles (Luis Liz-Marzán, (p. 9462)), Molecular Materials (Giuseppe Resnati (p. 9511)), Molecular Recognition in Chemical and Biological Systems (Carsten Schmuck (p. 9502)), Self-Assembly (Nazario Martín (p. 9638)), Chemical Biology (Herbert Waldmann (p. 9585), Adam Nelson (p. 9563)), Metal Catalysis (Polly Arnold (p. 9623), Per-Ola Norrby (p. 9494), Armando Pombeiro (p. 9485)), Catalysis in Organic Transformations (Karl-Anker Jørgensen (p. 9478), Dean Toste (p. 9555), Jérôme Waser (p. 9457), José Alemán, (p. 9453), Juan C. Carretero (p. 9676)), Heterogenous Catalysis (Alfons Baiker (p. 9658), José Juan Calvino (p. 9536)), Medicinal Chemistry (Gisbert Schneider (p. 9630)), Biocatalysis and Biomaterials (Uwe T. Bornscheuer (p. 9525)), Advances in Organic Synthesis (Johann Mulzer (p. 9616), Mercedes Amat (p. 9438)), Advances in Inorganic Synthesis (Matthias Driess (p. 9669), Geoff Cloke (p. 9446), Piero Leoni (p. 9468), Rinaldo Poli (p. 9572)), Physical Organic and Inorganic Chemistry (Guy Lloyd-Jones, (p. 9449)), Highlights in Inorganic Chemistry (Wolfgang Schnick (p. 9646)), and Highlights in Organic Stereochemistry (Martin Kotora (p. 9442)). Also included are papers by the two Chairmen of the Scientific Committee, François Diederich (p. 9592) and Andreas Hirsch (p. 9544), as well as the winner of the European Sustainable Chemistry Award, Matthias Beller (p. 9606). Opportunities for Young Chemists: The competition for the European Young Chemist Award 2010, sponsored by the Italian Chemical Society, will take place once again at this congress. It is intended to showcase and recognise the excellent research being carried out by young scientists, whether Ph.D. student, Postdoc, or researcher, working in the chemical sciences. Seventeen finalists have been selected and will be required to deliver a talk on their research at the European Young Chemists Award Competition Session during the Congress and a panel of judges will then select the award winners. Past winners of this award include Jonathan Nitschke (Gold Medal 2006), who has since then joined the academic staff at the University of Cambridge (UK) and has recently published an article on the interplay of interactions governing the dynamic conversions of acyclic and macrocyclic helicates (Chem. Eur. J. 2009, 15, 6138). Lee Cronin (Silver Medal 2006) has just had his 25th paper accepted in Angewandte Chemie and will be featured in the Author Profiles section of the journal in a forthcoming issue. Fabio Arnesano (Gold Medal 2008) is currently a researcher at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Bari “Aldo Moro” (Italy) and has recently published an article on unusual interstrand Pt(S,S-diaminocyclohexane)-GG crosslink formed by rearrangement of a classical intrastrand crosslink within a DNA duplex (Chem. Asian J. 2010, 5, 244). Guillermo Mínguez Espallargas (Gold Medal at Ph.D. level in 2008) is currently a “Juan de la Cierva” Research Scientist at the ICMol of the University of Valencia (Spain) and has recently published a paper with Eugenio Coronado and Miguel Clemente-León on multifunctional magnetic materials obtained by insertion of a spin-crossover FeIII complex into bimetallic oxalate-based ferromagnets (Chem. Eur. J. 2010, 16, 2207). The winners of the “Everything is Chemistry” international picture contest will also be announced. This competition has been organised by the European Young Chemists Network (EYCN). The network, founded in 2006, is the younger members division of the EuCheMS and aims to promote communication between and exchange of ideas among chemists in European industry, academia, professional institutions and European government bodies (for more information, see their homepage: http://www.eycn.eu/about_EYCN.html) Competitors have been asked to send in photos showing illustrating how chemistry is a part of our everyday life. The twelve best pictures will appear as a calendar for the International Year of Chemistry in 2011. If you are also interested in how our authors like to depict their chemistry, take a look at the cover gallery available on our homepage (www.chemeurj.org). Latest news from ChemPubSoc Europe: 1 ChemPubSoc Europe is an organization of European chemical societies, founded in the late 1990s as a consequence of the amalgamation of many chemical journals owned by national chemical societies into a number of high-quality European journals. This year it has expanded to include two “Supporting Societies”, that is, societies that are not founding members, and who join as co-owners of the latest addition to the society-owned European family of journals; these are the Solvenská Chemická Spoločnost (SCHS, the Slovak Chemical Society) and the Swiss Chemical Society (SCS). All participating societies, now 16, share a commitment to scientific excellence, to publishing ethics, and to the highest standards in publication, which are the basis for the success of the ChemPubSoc Europe journals. ChemistryViews goes live: ChemPubSoc Europe and Wiley-VCH have launched a new online service for our readers—ChemistryViews.org. 1 ChemistryViews is a comprehensive free-to-view news and information site with an associated magazine, ChemViews (see also the Inside Cover of this issue). The new site enhances ChemPubSoc Europe’s and Wiley-VCH′s already market-leading position as a publisher of peer-reviewed content by adding news, commentary, opinion and additional feature material from leading authors to offer the global chemistry community a complete information service. ChemistryViews was launched earlier this year in Paris on May 21 at the “Frontiers of Chemistry” symposium, which was a celebratory event on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of ChemBioChem and ChemPhysChem, European journals of chemical biology and physical chemistry/chemical physics. The programme included presentations from ten world-renowned speakers, including four Nobel laureates, and was also broadcast live over the internet through a virtual event platform. If you missed this momentous occasion, an archive of the event is available from the ChemistryViews site or read the Conference Report in ChemBioChem 2010, 11, 1487. ChemistryViews is designed to address the information needs of this global community. Uniquely presenting its content through both a subject-channeled approach as well as a thematic view, the site allows chemists to quickly and logically drill-down to focused content in their field, and to easily access related material, both free-to-view and peer-reviewed. The site will be under constant development according to the needs of its users. Content will be added regularly and the editors of ChemistryViews will be giving presentations at the EuCheMS Congress in Nürnberg. Check out the latest updates at the Wiley Stand in the exhibitions hall. 1 Impact Factors: The impact factors for 2009 were released in June and we were pleased that Chemistry—A European Journal is still holding strong with an impact factor of 5.382 and the five-year impact factor rose to an all time high of 5.563. Of the other members of the ChemPubSoc Europe journals, ChemSusChem received an impressive first impact factor of 4.767 confirming its status as a highly influential journal for sustainability-related chemistry, materials science and more. The impact factors of the European Journal of Organic Chemistry, European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, ChemBioChem and of ChemMedChem rose to 3.096, 2.941, 3.824 and 3.232, respectively; while ChemPhysChem consolidated its position with a value of 3.453. These developments illustrate the strength of the partnership between Wiley-VCH and ChemPubSoc Europe. We look forward with anticipation for the first impact factor for the newest family member ChemCatChem launched in August 2009. Finally, the impact factor of the parent journal of several of these products, Angewandte Chemie, the flagship journal of the German Chemical Society, is at an all time high of 11.848, well above its direct competitors. Having said this, much is made throughout science about impact factors and their changes and in her article “Factors Behind the Impact”, Sarah Millar of ChemViews takes a critical look at their calculation, controversy, and usage. While most authors and editors acknowledge the usefulness of impact factors in assessing a journal’s standing and associated prestige within its field, considerable caution should be exercised when using impact factors to assess the quality of individual articles or researchers, as a value averaged over an entire journal gives almost no information about the individual cases. Her facet: Impact factors are here to stay whether we like them or not, but should be handled with care (for more details, see ChemistryViews.org). Thank you: We would like to thank all those authors who have contributed to this issue for the 3rd European Chemistry Congress in Nürnberg and also to the referees without whose help we would not be able to ensure the high-standard of chemistry that we publish. Also, we would like to wish the organisers of the event every success. The Chemistry Congress in Nürnberg is a further step towards establishing a regular European counterpart to the Spring and Fall Meetings of the American Chemical Society. In the words of François Diederich “It is just like sports. It is nice to have national conventions, but the really exciting events involve all of Europe and higher levels of competition—just like in the Football Champions League.” We are sure that this event will serve, in a similar way to Chemistry—A European Journal, to further unite the chemical sciences within Europe. Neville Compton and I will be attending the Congress in Nürnberg and would be pleased to discuss any matters concerning the journal and how we can further optimize our services to meet your needs. We look forward to seeing you there. 1 Anne Deveson Deputy Editor P.S.: A big vote of thanks also goes to the “Nürnberg Club” team at Triltsch (our typesetters and printers), who never said “no” to squeezing in a few last papers long after the final deadline “whistle” had been blown.1
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