University College Cork host online Organic Division Ireland regional meeting

The RSC Organic Division Ireland Regional Meeting took place on Friday 2 July 2021.  The event was formally hosted by University College Cork this year, but was conducted exclusively online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Alongside industrial representatives from Thermofisher Scientific, the meeting was attended by 137 delegates from various institutions around Ireland, including:

• Maynooth University
• Dublin City University
• University of Limerick
• Queen’s University Belfast
• University College Dublin
• Athlone Institute of Technology
• University of Ulster
• Waterford Institute of Technology
• NUI Galway, University College Cork
• Trinity College Dublin
• Technological University Dublin

The online format for the meeting also facilitated attendance by delegates from outside Ireland. There were attendees from numerous institutions in Great Britain, including Imperial College London, University of Edinburgh, University of Nottingham, University of Nottingham, University of Warwick, Newcastle University, University College London, University of St Andrews, University of Southampton, University of Wolverhampton, Keele University and Cardiff University.

The online format also enabled attendees from further afield to join in, for example University of British Columbia, Gazi University, Jawaharlal University, University of Sarajevo, CNRS Orléans, and King Abdulaziz University.

The event consisted of fourteen presentations divided across three sessions.  Six presentations were given by Principal Investigators from institutions around Ireland. Topics addressed in these presentations included:

• asymmetric synthesis
• novel synthetic methodology involving production of bipyridines
• novel uses of ketenes
• novel approaches to hydrogenation, carbohydrate chemistry and supramolecular chemistry.

Seven short presentations were given by PhD students from Irish institutions. Topics addressed in these presentations included medicinal chemistry, asymmetric synthesis, novel methodology for Diels-Alder cycloadditions and monosaccharide synthesis, and impurity distributions in solid APIs.

Prizes, provided by the Organic Division, were awarded for the three best short presentations made by the PhD students.  In no particular order, these were awarded to Annette Benson (UCD), Louise Cooney (UCC) and Grace Sutton (NUIG).  Congratulations to these prize winners, and to all of the presenting postgraduate students for their excellent contributions to this event.

The plenary lecture, a fantastic talk on “Cu-mediated C–X bond formation: Fundamental to applied”, was given by Dr Allan Watson from the University of St Andrews, winner of the 2019 RSC Hickinbottom Award.  The purpose of this award is to acknowledge outstanding contributions to organic chemistry from an early career scientist and was presented to Dr Watson for his work on development of approaches to understand mechanisms of catalytic reactions and of new approaches for making C—X bonds.

Written by Peter Byrne, University College Cork (meeting organiser)

The Organic Division Council would like to thank Peter for organising the Organic Division Ireland Regional Meeting.