Congratulations to Dr. Mark Jackson who has just passed his Viva!

Mark worked on Palladium catalysis for his PhD project and has submitted his thesis entitled “Development of Pd-Catalysis for the Asymmetric Synthesis of Tertiary & Quaternary alpha-Aryl Containing Oxindoles”.

Denise Moran and Catherine Tighe attended the French Medicinal Chemistry Society’s Young Research Fellows Meeting which took place in the School of Pharmacy in Lille. This three day conference featured talks from young researchers as well as plenary lectures from academic and industrial researchers with a focus on drug discovery and optimisation. Congratulations to Catherine Tighe who was awarded the SCT-ACS J. Med. Chem. Joint Award which will send her to the upcoming 252nd ACS National Meeting in Philadelphia.

The CSCB Symposium- ‘Recent Advances in Synthesis and Chemical Biology XIV’ took place on Friday 11th of December in RSCI. Brilliant talks were delivered by Professor Norio Shibata (Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan), Professor Nils Metzler-Nolte (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany), Professor Jane Clarke (University of Cambridge, UK), Professor Stephen Clarke (University of Glasgow, UK) and Professor Miquel Pericas (ICIQ, Tarragona, Spain) . Well done to all the group members who presented posters, particularly to Catherine Tighe who was awarded a prize for her poster. Thanks to all involved in the organisation of the day.

Congratulations to Dr. Robert Doran who was awarded the prestigious Royal Irish Academy Young Chemist’s Prize. This prize is given for the most outstanding Irish PhD thesis of 2014 in the general area of the chemical sciences.

The 19th European Symposium of Organic Chemistry took place from the 12th to the 16th of July at the Universidade de Lisboa and was attended by Chris Nottingham, Catherine Tighe, Mark Jackson, Dr. Ramu Akula and Prof. Pat Guiry. There was a great line up of talks across the five days and a very enjoyable conference dinner. As the incoming President of ESOC, Pat announced that the next symposium will take place in Cologne (2017). Big congratulations to Chris Nottingham who was awarded the ESOC poster prize!

The 67th Irish Universities Chemistry Research Colloquium took place at Maynooth University on the 25-26th of June. As always the colloquium highlighted the outstanding research being conducted by the best and brightest of Ireland’s young chemists at third level institutions across Ireland. A brilliant time was had by all students from the group who attended. Well done to Catherine Tighe for her poster presentation and to Chris Nottingham for his excellent oral presentation.