Conference Call

General Assembly in Torino in August 2007, received held 2–7 August 2009 in Glasgow, Scotland. The 21st the minutes of its strategy meeting held at the ICCE, “Chemistry Education and Sustainability in the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia earlier Global Age,” will be held 8–13 August 2010 in Taipei, in 2008, and heard reports from subcommittees. Taiwan; details are available at .

Morton Z. Hoffman is the U.S. National Representative to the IUPAC Committee on Chemistry Education and the liaison with the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education. He is a retired professor from Boston University, Massachusetts, USA. Ponnadurai Ramasami is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Mauritius. He was chair of the conference organizing committee.

Physical Organic Chemistry The Subcommittee on Chemistry for Development by Charles L. Perrin reported on the two-day conference on “Improving Chemical Education in the Philippines” that was held The 19th International Conference on Physical at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, 17-18 April Organic Chemistry (ICPOC2008), which was spon- 2008. This was a project of the Flying Chemists sored by IUPAC, was held 13–18 July 2008 at The Royal Program in which education experts collaborate with University of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. academic institutions and governmental officials in This follows ICPOC18, held in August 2006 in Warsaw, particular countries to help them improve the teach- Poland. The 2008 conference attracted 344 regis- ing of chemistry (see Jul-Aug 2008 CI, page 29). The trants, including 53 students. It was truly international, activities of the Network for Inter-Asian Chemistry with participants from 43 countries. Educators (NICE) were also described (see page 30 Santiago de Compostela is in the northwest of of this issue for details on the coming 2009 sympo- Spain, a region of green forests, ocean bays, and cool- sium to be held 29–30 July 2009 at Tokyo Gakugei ing summer breezes. The imposing cathedral (below) University). is the destination of an important pilgrimage route, The current effort of the Subcommittee on the dating from medieval times. The University of Santiago Public Understanding of Chemistry is to work with de Compostela, founded in 1495 by Lope Gómez de IUPAC and its National Adhering Organizations toward Marzoa, is one of the oldest universities in the world. It the proclamation of 2011 as the International Year now enrolls 45 000 students across several campuses. of Chemistry by UNESCO and the UN. Through It was an excellent venue for a conference, close to the very hard work by Ethiopia and the support of city center, well equipped for lectures and computer Algeria, Benin, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic access, and with dining facilities and cafes serving Republic of the Congo, Egypt, France, India, Japan, abundant and tasty local food. Kuwait, Madagascar, Malaysia, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, The scientific program featured 11 plenary speakers, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Senegal, South 22 invited speakers, 89 oral communications, and 180 Africa, Togo, Uganda, and the United Republic of posters. The plenary lecturers showcased the diversity Tanzania, and Zambia, the Executive Board of UNESCO of physical organic chemistry, including instrumental approved the resolution. methods, biochemical applications, and studies of the CCE recognized the devoted efforts of Lida Schoen relationship between molecular structure and reactiv- (Netherlands) to implement the successful Young ity. A key topic was nanotechnology and surface sci- Ambassadors for Chemistry (YAC) pro- ence, which included lectures on the following topics: gram. The committee discussed ways in • nanoscale switches and motors (B.L. Feringa, which this outstanding project could be Univ. of Groningen, Netherlands) sustained. • metal nanoparticles (J.C. Scaiano, Univ. of Ottawa, The next meeting of CCE will take place Canada) at the 42nd IUPAC General Assembly and • selective heterogeneous catalysis for green chem- Congress (“Chemistry Solutions”) to be istry (Avelino Corma, Univ. of Valencia, Spain)

26 CHEMISTRY International January-February 2009 Conference Call

• reactive species through site isolation on surfaces cobalt(III) phthalocyanine to amines (Wlodzimierz (Christophe Copéret, Univ. of Lyon, France) Galezowski, Poland) • the remarkable observation of intracage vapor • resonance-assisted hydrogen bonds (Manuel bubbles arising by solvent loss from self- Yañez, Spain) assembled trigonal prisms (Josef Michl, Univ. of • conformations of N-nitroso-N,O-dimethylhydrox- Colorado, USA) ylamine (Howard Maskill, UK) • photostimulated intramolecular SRN1 reactions Another important topic was catalysis, which (Roberto A. Rossi, Argentina) included the following lectures: • NMR spectroscopy and ion pairing (Paul Pregosin, Full details of the conference program, including a ETH, Switzerland) list of speakers and lecture titles, are available on the • dynamic and thermodynamic contributions to conference website . enzymatic transition states (Vern Schramm, A. This biennial conference, the nineteenth in an ongo- Einstein College of Medicine, USA) ing series, was sponsored by the IUPAC Organic and • late transition-metal complexes as polymerization Biomolecular Chemistry Division under the auspices catalysts (Kyoko Nozaki, U Tokyo, Japan) transi- of its Subcommittee on Structural and Mechanistic tion-metal-free hydrogenation and hydrogenoly- Chemistry. The local organizers, especially José Ramon sis (Leo Radom, U Sydney, Australia) Leis and Amelia Huzum, of Universidad de Santiago de • investigations of some unusual structures, includ- Compostela, and Arturo Santaballa, of Universidad de ing divalent carbon(0) compounds (Gernot A Coruña, are to be commended for the excellence of Frenking, U Marburg, Germany) their planning and implementation of this conference • symmetry of hydrogen bonds (Charles L. Perrin, and for obtaining adequate funding from numerous UC San Diego, USA). sponsors. The Subcommittee on Structural and Mechanistic Following is a sampling of the many other oral pre- Chemistry has recommended that the 2010 Conference sentations at the conference: be held in Busan, Korea. • aromaticity lag in proton transfer (Claude Bernasconi, UC Santa Cruz, USA) Charles L. Perrin , professor of chemistry at the University of • photochemistry of tetrazoles (María de Lurdes California, San Diego, is a member of the IUPAC Subcommittee on Structural and Cristiano, U Algarve, Portugal) Mechanistic Chemistry and was the organizer of the 16th International Conference • methylglyoxal synthase (AnnMarie C. O´Donoghue, on Physical Organic Chemistry, held 4–9 August 2002 in La Jolla, CA. UK) • solvolysis of benzhydryl derivatives (Olga Kronja, Croatia) Molecular Order and Mobility • isotope effects in methyl transfers from σ-methyl in Polymer Systems by Tatiana Birshtein The 6th International Symposium on Molecular Order and Mobility in Polymer Systems, held 2-6 June 2008 in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, was the extension of the symposia series organized by the Institute of Macromolecular Compounds of the Russian Academy of Science (RAS). The symposium involved a very wide range of participants, not only in terms of the coun- tries, universities, and laboratories they represented, but also in the positions they held in polymer science and their ages and qualifications. The co-organizers of the symposium, dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the institute, were the Department of Chemistry and Material Science and the The Cathedral Santiago de Compostela. Scientific Polymer Council of RAS. The symposium was

CHEMISTRY International January-February 2009 27