Emergent and integrated systems chemistry

Pr. James Fraser Stoddart

Northwestern University, USA Sir James Fraser Stoddart (born 24 May 1942) is a Scottish chemist currently (as of 22 March 2014) at the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University in the United States. He works in the area of supramolecular chemistry and nanotechnology. Stoddart has developed highly efficient syntheses of mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures such as molecular Borromean rings, catenanes and rotaxanes utilizing molecular recognition and molecular self-assembly processes. He has demonstrated that these topologies can be employed as molecular switches and as motor-molecules. His group has even applied these structures in the fabrication of nanoelectronic devices and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). His efforts have been recognized by numerous awards including the 2007 King Faisal International Prize in Science

Lessons learned from directed evolution of stereoselective enzymes

Pr. Manfred Reetz

Max-Planck Institut, Germany Dr. Manfred Reetz was born in Hirschberg, Germany, in 1943 and immigrated to the USA in 1952. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree from the Washington University, USA, and his Master’s degree from the University of Michigan, USA. He returned to Germany to complete his Ph.D. at the University of Göttingen. He has been a Professor at several German and American universities, including the universities of Marburg and Bonn, in Germany, and Florida State University and University of Wisconsin in the US. In 1991, he was appointed as the Director of the Max-Planck-Institute for Coal Research, where he remained until his retirement in 2011. Reetz' research involves the introduction of molecular biology into synthetic organic chemistry, for example, for selective C–C and C–H activating oxidations of simple and complex organic compounds as well as hydrolytic processes. He is also known for investigating biological strategies and techniques for rapidly probing protein sequence space and the development of high-throughput screening systems for evaluating stereoselectivity and thermostability of enzyme mutants.

Therapeutic innovation: from common to rare diseases and back. The case of high blood pressure

M. Pierre Corvol

Collège de France, France Dr. Pierre Corvol, born in Boulogne-Billancourt (France) in 1941, is a doctor in medicine, with a post-graduate degree in biochemistry. He has held the posts of intern in Hospitals of Paris (1964), International Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health in the United States (1969), Senior Registrar (1971), Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine at Broussais - Hôtel-Dieu (1976), Head of the Hypertension Department at Broussais Hospital (1986), and was a doctor at the Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou until August 2007. From 1983 to 2006, Pierre Corvol directed the INSERM 36 Unit (Vascular Pathology and Renal Endocrinology), and is the head of one of the three teams at INSERM U833 (Psychological and Pathological Angiogenesis). He is Director of IRF 52 (Institut Fédératif de Recherche de Biologie du Collège de France). He is the recipient of many international awards for his work on human hypertension and on the renin-angiotensin system, a vital element in controlling cardiovascular function. He is honorary Professor at the Collège de France (Chair of Experimental Medicine) since 1989, and was one of its trustees from 2006 to 2012.

Advances in supramolecular polymerization

Pr. Takuzo Aida

University of Tokyo, Japan Dr. Takuzo Aida was born in 1956. He received his Ph.D. in Polymer Chemistry from the University of Tokyo in 1984, and then began his academic career at the same university on precision polymer synthesis. In 1996, he was promoted to Full Professor of the Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo. His research interests include optoelectronic soft materials, bioinspired macromolecules, and molecular and biomolecular machines. He is now the director for Riken Advanced Science Institute. He has received many awards including, as recent examples, American Chemical Society Award in Polymer Chemistry in 2009 and Alexander von Humboldt Research Award in 2011.

50 years of chemistry publishing: 1980-2030

Dr. Peter Goelitz

The total synthesis of vitamin B12 ( Excerp ts of a video recording of the lecture

Pr. Robert Burns Woodward (1917-1979)

Protochemistries are a bridge

Pr. Roald Hoffmann

Nobel Prize (Cornell University, USA) Dr. Roald Hoffmann was born in 1937 in Zloczow, Poland. Having survived the war, he came to the U. S. in 1949, and studied chemistry at Columbia and Harvard Universities (Ph.D. 1962). Since 1965 he is at Cornell University, now as the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters Emeritus. He has received many of the honors of his profession, including the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with Kenichi Fukui). "Applied theoretical chemistry" is the way Roald Hoffmann likes to characterize the particular blend of computations stimulated by experiment and the construction of generalized models, of frameworks for understanding, that is his contribution to chemistry. The pedagogical perspective is very strong in his work.