Volume 76, No. 3, July 2012
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Inside Volume 76, No.3, July 2012 Articles and Features 80 Oligosaccharide profiles of Asian commercial honeys Mérine Dumté and Merilyn Manley-Harris 85 Melt-extruded polyethylene oxide (PEO) rods as drug delivery vehicles: Formulation, performance as controlled release devices and the influence of co- extruded excipients on drug release profiles Michael R. Mucalo and Michael J. Rathbone 96 Novel polyoxometalates: is antimony the new molybdenum? Brian K Nicholson and Christopher J Clark 99 Obituary: Sir Paul Callaghan 101 Obituary: Alan Arthur Turner 1934-2012 107 IUPAC press release: Element 114 (Flerovium) and element 116 (Livermorium) Other Columns 74 Comment from the President 98 Conference Calendar 74 NZIC July News 103 Patent Proze 79 Science Scene 102 Chem News 95 Grants and Awards 105 Dates of Note Advertising Inside front cover Sigma Aldrich Cover Front cover: Representation of the structure of an antimony polyoxometalate (see article by Nicholson and Clark) 73 Chemistry in New Zealand July 2012 Comment from the President I noticed an April issue they negotiate one deadline after another. Many will have of New Scientist in our recently completed their Performance-Based Research tea room as I was head- Fund (PBRF) Portfolio; some, I know, find the exercise ing to make myself a cup frustrating, but this is important for our Departments and of coffee one evening Institutions as they position themselves for their portion NZIC News last week: the banner of the available resources. However, once all the polish- headline read “CHEM- ing of individual portfolios has been done, I do recom- ISTRY’S GREATEST mend that you print off your own, read it through and give CHALLENGE” in yourself a good pat on the back for all that you have ac- bold uppercase letters. complished and contributed over the last six years. Turning to the “Cover Story” I discovered that In addition to the PBRF juggernaut, the 9th of May was the the greatest challenge announcement of the Marsden Pre-proposal round. This was the creation of ar- is a significant day for many of us, and particularly so for tificial photosynthesis younger researchers who are trying to establish their re- for solar-powered fu- search programmes. Approximately 20% of our members els – a subject close to my heart – and I promptly pho- who applied will have received an invitation to submit a tocopied the article to pass on to my 300-level students. full proposal and around a third of those will be popping While I agree with the article (my research is on photo- champagne corks in October. It is important that we con- synthesis!), I immediately wondered what NZIC mem- gratulate all who are successful and we should celebrate bers would consider Chemistry’s Greatest Challenge – alongside them. However, I believe it is equally important if you email me your answers we will publish the “Top that we recognise the effort we all put into our Marsden 10 List” in the next issue of Chemistry in New Zealand Proposals. Even if unsuccessful, the preparation of a grant (email: [email protected]). serves to sharpen and focus our research ideas on topics I suspect that for many of us our own research is high up which we recognise are important and that need answers. on our scale of what is important and relevant, and we That we submit so many pre-proposals, despite the lim- are dedicated to working on our chosen problem. I think ited funding, is a measure of our dedication and enthu- it sometimes goes unnoticed how dedicated researchers siasm. In the end, Chemistry’s Greatest Challenge is that are to their work. I doubt if there are many successful we succeed in passing on that enthusiasm to our students. academics or researchers who don’t put in 50 or more Julian Eaton-Rye hours a week to keep their research moving forward as NZIC President New Zealand Institute of Chemistry supporting chemical sciences July News News new product development and some staff within the School: Alistair Mead, of the technical challenges in New who will use the award to present at NZIC congratulates the following Zealand associated with the develop- the Australasian Scientific Glassblow- member of their appointments, made ment of generic and novel formula- ing Symposium in Dunedin; Michel on the occasion of the Queen's Birth- tions for European and US markets. Nieuwoudt, to present at the Corro- day and Diamond Jubilee: Professor sion and Prevention conference in Christine Winterbourn, Companion Melbourne later this year; and Katrina of the New Zealand Order of Merit; University of Auckland Graf, to enable her to accompany the and Dr Tom Clarkson, Companion of Within the School of Chemical Sci- New Zealand Chemistry Olympiad the Queen's Service Order. ences, Dr Donald Wlodkowic was one team to Washington DC. The School of six academics from across the Uni- of Chemical Sciences also held a spe- Branch News versity in 2012 to be awarded an Early cial celebration on 24 May to mark Career Research Excellence Award. AUCKLAND the achievements of Prof Margaret This recognised Donald’s research Brimble this year, particularly her in- At a May NZIC branch seminar, Dr with a new class of smart microfluidic vestiture as a Companion of the New Peter Surman from Douglas Pharma- Lab-on-a-Chip devices for large-scale Zealand Order of Merit. ceuticals spoke on the Pharmaceutical marine biomonitoring applications. industry in New Zealand: the Douglas Three Professional Staff Develop- In May, the new lecturer in Wine Sci- story, and outlined pharmaceutical ment Awards were also achieved by ence, Dr Bruno Fedrizzi, from Pado- 74 Chemistry in New Zealand July 2012 va, Italy, took up his position within was supervised by Prof Jim Metson, CANTERBURY the School. Bruno is presently work- with co-supervisors Dr Tilo Soehnel The NZIC annual BBQ was held on ing on grape metabolomics and wine and Assoc Prof Hicham Idriss. Monday 12 March, to which were in- quality projects, in particular aroma vited all second, third and fourth year chemistry. Bruno is accompanied by Each year the current PhD students Chemistry students (University and his wife Katryna van Leeuwen who within the School of Chemical Sci- Polytechnic), postgraduate students will continue her PhD research work ences prepare abstracts for the annual and NZIC members in addition to the at Auckland in Analytical Chemistry Chemistry Research Showcase. From passing physics students attracted by towards a degree being undertaken the best of the abstracts, six students the smell of seared mammal flesh who through Charles Sturt University in were chosen to present talks at the attempted to argue that physics isn't Australia. A recent addition to the Showcase in June. The successful that different from chemistry really. It Hybrid Polymer group based at the students were Julia Allwood, Bren- was exceptionally well attended. Tamaki campus was Dr Carla Fon- dan Harvey, Vedran Jovic, Meder Kamalov, U Bin and Wei Li. These seca-Paris on a post-doctoral fellow- National Chemistry Competition ship, who will apply her background six oral presentations join 24 short in polymers, surface and interface sci- presentations given by first year PhD Following its success last year, the ence to the commercialisation of anti- students, and more than 70 poster pre- NZIC is running another National microbial conducting polymers. sentations featuring the wide range Chemistry Competition, this time to of research topics covered within the be held at Massey University on 26 An addition of an instrumental kind School. Two additional recent student June. Selection of the local team oc- will be a four-month placement in successes were awards for the Univer- curred by a local competition held in 2012 of an advanced surface plas- sity of Auckland Spark Entrepreneur- March of this year. It involved teams mon resonance instrument (SPR Navi ship Challenge Ideas competition. In from 12 different schools, from which 220A), following the success of Dr both cases students from the research a team of four from Christ’s College Jenny Malmström, a post-doctoral groups of Assoc Prof Jadranka Tra- emerged victorious. This team will be fellow working in the group of As- vas-Sejdic and Prof David Williams off to Palmerston North in June to rep- soc Prof Jadranka Travas-Sejdic, in were the winners. Cosmin Laslau re- resent our region. winning an international competition ceived the $2000 Chiasma prize for run by BioNavis, for a project en- an idea to commercialise a scanned CPIT titled Multi-parametric surface plas- nanopipette system for biotech appli- mon resonance studies of electrically cations, while Anupama Rao Gulur Year 12 Chemistry Competition switchable surfaces and related pro- Srinivas and Nathan March won a In mid-May, CPIT held its Year 12 tein adsorption. $1000 prize in the commercial cat- Chemistry competition, which tested egory for a proposal for DNA sensors both theory and practice for the stu- Student achievements and awards based on conducting polymers and dents. It is great to see so many enthu- began in April on a lighter note, with magnetic nanoparticles. the School’s postgraduate students siastic students in the labs (25 teams competing for the most imaginative Seminars within the School of Chemi- each consisting of three students). The ‘Wish I was...’ outfits! on a night out. cal Sciences in recent months have winning team was one from Burnside The prize for best dressed as X-Men’s included Dr James Crowley from High School, closely followed by Wolverine went to Nathan March, the Department of Chemistry at the Rangiora High School, with Christ- while Clarke Kent (aka Karthik University of Otago, who spoke on church Girls' High School and Mid- Kannappan) scooped the runner-up Functional Ligands: It’s as easy as dleton Grange sharing third equal.