This morning I went to some physical chemistry sessions on computational quantum chemistry. I won’t attempt to summarize the various interesting points raised by the speakers as well as the members of the audience, but I’d like to highlight one conclusion from Stefan Grimme’s presentation: he showed that dispersion corrections should really be used routinely – rather than occasionally – in density functional theory (DFT) methods. Pavel Hobza, who next took the stage, wholeheartedly agreed, saying in particular that these corrections play an extremely important role when it comes to biomolecules.

After another few talks in that session – including a very engaging presentation from Mark Gordon about his favourite molecule, water – I nearly didn’t make it to the sessions held in a different hotel because the roads were getting flooded… [well, yes, after I mentioned the lovely weather and warm temperatures it’s only fair to let you know that we did have a lot of rain today]. But all went well and I managed to see some anion coordination chemistry, including a photo of beautiful crystals growing in a supramolecular gel, from Jon Steed’s lab (photo that appeared recently in a certain chemistry journal). Steed’s group first form a supramolecular bis(urea) gel for which the gelation can be reversed by adding an anion. They then use the gel as a matrix for the crystallisation of organic compounds, and subsequently remove it (by anion addition) to collect the crystals. Gels are often mentioned as promising host matrices for drugs, and this approach could serve for pharmaceutical polymorph screening.

The last talks of the conference will be held tomorrow morning — and this also marks the end of Chemistry Week, as December 15-20 had been officially proclaimed by the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of the State of Hawai’i.

It has certainly been a great meeting, with engaging presentations and discussions as well as very enjoyable evenings – for example, we were treated to some traditional chanting and dancing not only from Hawaii but also from the other Polynesian countries. And this is how I got to see a real New Zealand Haka (well known to those who like to watch international rugby), a little before a ‘fire dance’ accompanied by fireworks on Waikiki beach…

The only thing is that I missed a few speakers that I really wanted to go and listen to – I may just have to come back in five years time!

Anne

Anne Pichon, Associate Editor (Nature Chemistry )

This past couple of days I have been attending more traditional, ‘core’ areas of chemistry at the inorganic, macromolecular and organic sessions. I first went to “the new age of advanced materials” symposium, and although I was fighting a little bit of jet lag and sleep deprivation (not a good combination) it made for a very interesting morning. Among exciting endeavours on helicity, supramolecular chirality, and controlled assembly and organization, Sam Stupp from Northwestern University showed interesting bioapplications with his supramolecular polymers, such as some neurotherapy studies that look promising against Parkinson’s disease.

In the inorganic sessions, I indulged in some metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) chemistry — these relatively young hybrid materials seem to be acquiring some maturity, rapidly moving to a new level of complexity and functionality. For example, Seth Cohen from University of California, San Diego, wishes that they could soon(ish) be used as scaffolds, in which just the right functional groups would be held in just the right place and orientation to mimic a metallo-protein active centre. Talking about bio-inspired applications, I particularly liked this comment from Ivan Huc that “mimicking isn’t copying”: scientist do get inspiration from nature – who controls activity, accessibility, or selectivity with remarkable precision – but rather than trying to reproduce the same functions they will then look to construct systems that do what nature cannot.

This morning I headed over to a ‘redox redux’ session on non-innocent ligands from an inorganic and an organometallic perspectives. Although as Cortlandt Pierpont reminded us they have been alluded to as far back as 1966, and described clearly in 1978, the role of these redox-active ligands had then not been mentioned much. They have recently been attracting attention, and I was happy to see elegant compounds and reactivities, including a combination of redox and acidic activities in Thomas Rauchfuss’ talk, or some unusual oxidation states [such as Pd and Pt(III), Ag(II), or Ni(III)] from Martin Schröder’s lab. Over on the organic side of things, a symposium dedicated to Bob Moss was also packed with intermediates and unusual molecules, and we saw in particular some pretty versatile reactivity from carbenes and nitrenes.

I’d like to borrow the (nearly) last thought for today from Eugenio Coronado at the University of Valencia, who showed some interesting studies in which monolayers – rather than molecules – serve as building blocks to prepare functional materials. He highlighted that this work requires a combination of inorganic, organic, coordination, supramolecular and surface chemistries, which fits nicely in the spirit of such a broad conference.

And finally… for those of you who haven’t finished their Christmas shopping, check out the Periodic Quest! Featuring two board games and about 4 or 5 card games – all centred about the elements, as the name suggests – this might just be the perfect present to keep busy with (chemistry-friendly) family and friends during those long winter nights (those what?)

Anne

Anne Pichon, Associate Editor (Nature Chemistry)

I am now – for the first time – in Hawaii, attending the Pacifichem meeting [officially the International Chemical Congress of Pacific Basin Societies] (I resisted the urge to start this post by “Aloha”, a word I’ve heard a lot in the past day or so). The meeting is huge: 275 symposia, more than 1,000 papers, 12,000 delegates! This is a ‘self-assembled’ conference, in which the symposia are organized ‘from the bottom up’ — each symposium is submitted by a group of organizers, from at least 3 countries from the Pacific rim (Canada – host country this year – the US, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Korea and China). This makes for a very diverse meeting. The only thing is that it is a little hard to pick which sessions to go to, with speakers that overlap. Also, should I go to topics I’m familiar with, such as the inorganic or macromolecular sessions, or plunge into the much less familiar?

According to our chairman, this year Pacifichem encouraged symposia at the interface between chemistry and other topics, such as health, environment and alternate technologies, where chemistry plays a leading role. In this spirit, today I attended parts of the sessions on analytical and environmental chemistry in human health; generation of hydrogen from water; and nanoparticle-based materials – and really enjoyed this variety. In the nanoparticle-based materials session, for example, we heard interesting approaches on how inorganic synthesis could be harnessed to control the properties, and pattern, particles. One talk that stood out for me was that of Terry Bigioni, from the University of Toledo. Usually, with nano-clusters, obtaining a uniform morphology and narrow size distribution is what matters — as Bigioni said, no-one is going to notice if you are missing about a hundred atoms. Today, however, he talked about magic (close-shell) clusters, in which every atom counts. These particularly stable sizes have been identified for gold [see for example this cluster reported in Science by Kornberg and co-workers], but much less is known about silver. Bigioni showed that, under wet chemical syntheses, silver clusters also form discrete clusters of specific sizes. These seem to share some of the stability rules of the gold clusters, but only to some extent, suggesting that there is more to the story than an extension of the gold clusters’ reactivity…

I also very much enjoyed the opening ceremony in the evening, at which Paul Corkum gave a wonderful talk that made physical chemistry very exciting, and even approachable. We can normally look at either the dynamics (femtochemistry) or structure (X-ray diffraction) of a particular system. In his lecture, Corkum talked about how new laser-based ways to image matter might soon make it possible to ‘film’ orbital changes during a chemical reaction, and perhaps make a 3D molecular movie. In the same way as the first film (‘The Horse in Motion’) made the cover of Scientific American in 1878, Corkum predicts the first ‘molecular movie’ will be on the cover again by 2018… Only eight years left! Exciting times.

Overall, a warm welcome from Pacifichem — and I’m not just talking about the temperature. I certainly look forward to the rest of the week, including some inorganic and macromolecular sessions.

Anne

Anne Pichon, Associate Editor (Nature Chemistry )