12th Asian Chemical Congress, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Introduction

The Asian Chemical congresses are held every two years in different cities in the Asia–Pacific region. The previous recent meetings took place in Seoul (2005) and Hanoi (2003). These congresses are one of the main activities of the Federation of Asian Chemical Societies (FACS), whose member societies comprise all chemical societies in the Asia–Pacific region. Australia has featured strongly in the operation and development of the FACS over a long period. The Kuala Lumpur congress was attended by approximately 1600 chemists and over 1000 papers were delivered. The majority of participants are from Asia and Oceania, but there were a substantial number of scientists from Europe and the USA. Prior to the conference, the FACS held its General Assembly. The 2009 congress will be held in Shanghai and the 2011 congress in Bangkok.

The 12th Asian Chemical Congress was held in the Putra World Trade Centre, within sight of the famous Petronas twin towers that, until recently, were the tallest buildings in the world (pictured).

Programme

The conference streams covered all the main areas of chemistry:

• inorganic, organometallic and bioinorganic chemistry
• organic chemistry: mechanism and synthesis
• physical and theoretical chemistry
• oils and fats chemistry and technology
• environmental and green chemistry
• food analysis, chemistry and technology
• innovations in chemical education
• natural products and medicinal chemistry
• polymer and material chemistry
• laboratory management
• analytical sciences.

Through the member societies, the FACS has well-established links to the Federation of European Chemical Societies (FECS), the Asian Federation for Medicinal Chemistry (AFMC) (which also holds biannual international medicinal chemistry meetings in Asia), IUPAC and the American Chemical Society. The majority of attendees were academic and government scientists, but there was significant participation by industrial scientists.

The opening remarks by Datuk Professor Soon Ting Kueh (President of the Institut Kimia Malaysia and conference Chair) focused on economic development, environment and sustainability. This led into the first plenary speaker, Nobel Laureate Professor Sherwood Rowland, who spoke on climate change, particularly global warming. He described how normal atmospheric gases generate the natural greenhouse effect that warms the atmosphere by 32°C. The increasing levels of anthropogenic greenhouse gases such as methane and CO2 are increasing this warming and it is not clear how far we are from a ‘tipping point’.

The other five distinguished plenary speakers gave excellent presentations on topics as diverse as natural products and medicinal chemistry, photocatalytic surfaces, self-assembly and challenges for chemistry in the 21st century. Professor KC Nicolau (Scripps Research Institute, USA) gave a presentation on how cascade reactions could be developed that allow very complex bioactive natural products to be synthesised much more easily than by the traditional total synthesis routes. He provided some startling examples of extremely complex natural products that could be largely generated in one pot. Uncialamycin is an exceedingly potent antimicrobial agent (picomolar activity against S. aureus). Like calicheamycin, the mechanism of action of the agent is that it generates a diradical in DNA and damages it selectively. It also shows activity at the 10pM level against cancer cells, where it shows activity 1000 times greater than taxol. He also described the synthesis and properties of another natural product, platensimycin, which shows promise as a fatty acid synthesis inhibitor.

Professor Douglas Kinghorn (Ohio State University, USA) presented a plenary lecture on novel drug leads from biodiverse medicinal plants. He pointed out that natural products occupy a complementary area of chemistry space to that of synthetic and combinatorial compounds. Apart from providing extremely valuable drug leads, natural products also make useful biochemical tools for probing cellular targets and providing mechanistic information. Global climate change, species loss and overexploitation pose serious risks for loss of valuable natural products in the future. He described one new plant natural product, silvestrol, which shows good efficacy against chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, a cancer for which no effective therapies are available. Interestingly and importantly, silvesterol acts selectively on B cells and not on T cells.

Professor Chunli Bai (Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing) gave a fascinating lecture on adsorption and self-assembly of organic molecules as studies by STM. He described building of ionic or organic nanostructures on solid surfaces or on solid/liquid interfaces using potential control in the STM.

The use of titanium dioxide surfaces to carry out a multitude of useful reactions was described by another plenary lecturer, Professor Akira Fujishima (Kanagawa Academy of Science and Technology, Japan). Titania surfaces have been used for many years to construct self-cleaning windows and tiles that use light to sanitise or de-scale surfaces. Such materials have now been built into self-cleaning houses, self-sterilising operating theatres, and even photoactive roads! The activated surfaces can also break water into hydrogen and oxygen using light. A surprising analysis shows that such potentially very useful surfaces are limited by the flux of photons with the correct wavelength in sunlight (~1015/cm2/sec). Calculations show that even if photoactive surfaces worked at 100% efficiency, it would take an area the size of 1km of road to generate one mole of hydrogen per second – not a practical rate.

The final plenary lecture by Professor Jung-Il Jin (Korea University, Korea) challenged the attendees to think about the future contributions of chemistry in the 21st Century. Chemistry has a central role in improving health, conquering disease and hunger, and finding sustainable ways of providing energy in the next few decades.

Summary

The conference presented a wide variety of scientific topics but with a strong focus on green chemistry, nanoscience, natural products chemistry, and to a lesser extent, medicinal chemistry. At the meeting the Phytochemical Society of Asia was formed, linking natural product chemists throughout the Asia–Pacific area. There is a very large research effort in natural products in the region, reflecting the immense biodiversity in most Asian countries, and the strategic advantage this affords scientists in the region. The Asian Chemical Congresses provide a convenient means of accessing much of the work in the region, and afford scientists from Australia and New Zealand, Europe and the US an effective network in the region. The next Asian Chemical Congress will be in Shanghai, September 13–15, 2009 (contact 13acc@mail.sioc.ac.cn))

The meeting website is at http://www.ikm.org.my/12acc.htm

David Winkler

An Introduction to Chemical Information 29 October 2008 Burlington House, London

Organised by the Chemical Structure Association Trust and the Royal Society of Chemistry Chemical Information and Computer Applications Group

This one-day training course will continue the successful meetings held in previous years, with a series of presentations which will provide an impartial and critical overview of chemical information products.

It will be given by specialists from academic information departments, vendor representatives and the pharmaceutical industry.

The theme of the presentations will cover structure searching in relation to chemical reactions, chemical properties and chemicals reported in patents.

Contact for further information:

dougveal@waitrose.com