Chemistry World Entrepreneur of the Year

David Haddleton, chemistry professor at Warwick University, has won the 2004 Chemistry World Entrepreneur of the year award. The prize recognises an individual's contribution to the commercialisation of research in the chemical sciences. Haddleton is the founder of Warwick Effect Polymers (WEP), which specialises in the design and development of polymers with specific properties (aka 'designer polymers'), utilising living radical polymerisation techniques. Since WEP's initial launch as a university funded venture in April 2001, the company has rapidly expanded and now operates independently. When he started the company Haddleton held all the senior management positions; he has since stepped back and now employs a full-time chief executive officer.

David Haddleton, Chemistry World Entrepeneur of the Year

'I never started the company as an exit route from academia' he told Chemistry World this month 'I love being an academic and I like my job'.

It is this enthusiasm for carrying out cutting-edge research that originally drew the one-time industrial chemist into academia, and in which he has earned the respect of many of his peers. The RSC is pleased to have a professional relationship with the highly acclaimed academic; he is a member of the editorial board of ChemComm and has just agreed to join the international editorial advisory board for Soft Matter, a new interdisciplinary journal publishing research into soft materials - a subject close to Haddleton's heart.

RSC award for synthetic inorganic chemist

Kit Cummins

Christopher C. 'Kit' Cummins, chemistry professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been awarded the inaugural Dalton Transactions lectureship. 'Our choice of the inaugural speaker was an easy task' comments John Arnold, North American associate editor for Dalton Transactions. 'Kit Cummins is an outstanding scientist who has developed some of the nicest synthetic inorganic chemistry of the last decade.' Perhaps most notable, is his development of a simple technique to split nitrogen molecules using a molybdenum 'saw'.

The aim of the Dalton Transactions lectureship is to enhance communication between some of the best researchers in inorganic chemistry, by offering the awardee an opportunity to present their work and subsequently spend time interacting with students, postdocs and faculty at a host university. The inaugural lecture will be held on 15th April 2005, at the University of California, Berkeley.

And finally......

Look out for the second in the series of ChemComm 40th Anniversary Articles, which is published this month. The author, Jean-Pierre Sauvage from the Université Louis Pasteur, describes how the spectacular developments in dynamic molecular systems over the last decade have led his group to look at transition metal-containing catenanes and rotaxanes as molecular machine prototypes.