3 Jun 2015
The South section regional meeting of the 26th SCI post-graduate symposium took place at Southampton University on the afternoon of Thursday May 21. A total of 12 speakers from chemistry departments across the south of the UK presented a mixture of exciting research, ranging from methodology to total synthesis, new catalysts and new scaffolds for drug discovery to organic scavengers, which approximately 40 people attended.
The standard of talks was exceptional, from the cutting edge science presented to the design of the slides. The oral delivery and the handling of some tough questions from an interactive audience were handled very well. All this made the task of identifying a winner and runner up rather challenging.
However, after much head-scratching, Marcin Odachowski from the University of Bristol was awarded first prize for his work on ‘transition metal-free couplings of secondary and tertiary boronic esters’ and Ashfaq Afsar from the University of Reading was awarded second prize for his talk on ‘Progress towards the development of ligands for separating actinides from lanthanides’.
Following a wine reception at the university, the speakers and local organiser (Dr Bruno Linclau) retired to dinner at a nearby restaurant.
SCI would like to thank Bruno and his team for making this all possible, along with Southampton University for the use of their facilities and Takeda Cambridge Ltd for co-sponsorship.
The winners are pictured to the right with David Miller and Bruno Linclau in the following order: David, Ashfaq Asfar, Marcin Odawski and Bruno.
David Miller
SCI Fine Chemicals Group
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