Division News
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Video Interviews of Organic Chemist-Huw Davies
We are pleased to announce that a second series of video interviews of leaders in our community are going on-line. For the month of May, we are featuring an interview with Huw M. L. Davies (Asa Griggs Candler Professor, Emory University)
The Organic Division and the ACS Innovative Grant program have supported this project, which has been directed by Dr. Jeff Seeman with the aid of extraordinary volunteer work of Tom Lawrence and GroundWorkDesign.
To view all the available interviews, please see: http://www.layingthegroundwork.com/chemists/
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National Organic Chemistry Symposium (NOS) – Posters
The National Organic Chemistry Symposium will be held at the University of Washington in Seattle, June 23-27. The symposium includes thirteen plenary lectures, plus the 2013 Roger Adams Awardee David Evans, and four nights of poster sessions, all in one of the most spectacular cities in country. The afternoons are free for exploring Seattle. Free buses will run every afternoon to Pike Place Market (home of Starbucks) and Seattle Center (where you will find the Space Needle, the Experience Music Project, the Duck Tours, and the Monorail). Another set of buses will take attendees to the famous Red Hook Brewery and dozens of marvelous Washington State Wineries. And don't forget the 5k Fun Run, with prizes!.
Poster abstracts will still be accepted but but will not be included in the booklet.
Check it all out at http://nationalorganicsymposium.org
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Kavli Foundation Emerging Leader in Chemistry Lecture: July 1
The Kavli Foundation has agreed to sponsor The Kavli Foundation Emerging Leader in Chemistry Lecture through 2015, with two lectures per year at each ACS national meeting. The Kavli Emerging Leader Lecture is awarded to an outstanding chemical scientist who is less than 10 years past receipt of his/her PhD and is under 40 years of age. The candidate is a distinguished younger scientist who is highly regarded by his or her peers for significant contributions to an area of chemistry or related multidisciplinary area of chemistry. Please see the nomination instructions and application form for more details. If you would like to submit yourapplication or nomination to the Division for consideration, please email the application form and all supporting documentation to orgdiv@sas.upenn.edu no later than July 1, 2013.
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The 2013 Organic Division Undergraduate Awardees
The Organic Division congratulates the 180 Inaugural Organic Division Undergraduate Awardees. Each awardee has been sent a certificate (personally signed by the Organic Division Chair, Professor Lawrence T. Scott) and a letter detailing how they can obtain free membership in the division.
The division has decided to sponsor this new award program to recognize senior students who display a significant aptitude for organic chemistry and to encourage further interest in the field. To receive the award, Chemistry departments select a top graduating senior student majoring in either chemistry or biochemistry who has demonstrated excellence in organic chemistry based on a combination of research experience, coursework and a desire to pursue a career in chemistry.
The list of the 2013 Organic Division Undergraduate Awardees is available here. For more details on the program see the Organic Division Undergraduate Award.
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Video Interviews of Organic Chemist-M. Christina White
We are pleased to announce that a second series of video interviews of leaders in our community are going on-line. For the month of May, we are featuring an interview with M. Christina White from the University of Illinois.
The Organic Division and the ACS Innovative Grant program have supported this project, which has been directed by Dr. Jeff Seeman with the aid of extraordinary volunteer work of Tom Lawrence and GroundWorkDesign.
To view all the available interviews, please see: http://www.layingthegroundwork.com/chemists/
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Abstracts Separates for the ACS Meeting New Orleans are now Available
Members can now access the abstract separates for the 245th ACS National Meeting to be held in New Orleans (Spring 2013). To access the file, you must be a Division Member. You can download the file (10 MB) from the Organic Division's Meeting Abstract Page. Use your ACS ID to access the page. If you do not have an ACS ID (or remember yours) visit http://www.acs.org , click on "Registering is Easy", and follow the directions to create (or obtain) your ACS ID.
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Video Interviews of Organic Chemists-Stephen Hanessian
We are pleased to announce that a second series of video interviews of leaders in our community are going on-line. These will appear, one a month, including Larry Overman, Christina White, and Mike Doyle. This month we are featuring an interview with Prof. Stephen Hanessian from the Université de Montréal and the University of California, Irvine
The Organic Division and the ACS Innovative Grant program have supported this project, which has been directed by Dr. Jeff Seeman with the aid of extraordinary volunteer work of Tom Lawrence and GroundWorkDesign.
To view all the available interviews, please see:http://www.layingthegroundwork.com/chemists/
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Thieme Offers Discount to Members
Thieme Chemistry is now offering a 15% discount to Organic Division members on the Science of Synthesis Workbench Edition Cross Coupling and Heck-Type Reactions , a three-volume reference work presenting a critical review of the field and the best metal-catalyzed cross coupling reactions available.

ACS Organic Division member price: $765 per set $255 per volume
See the Members only Book Discount page for details on how to obtain discounts on these and other titles.
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The JOC & OL Outstanding Author of the Year Lectureship Awards
The Journal of Organic Chemistry, Organic Letters and the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry are proud to announce Dennis G. Hall and Dale L. Boger as the winners of the inaugural Journal of Organic Chemistry & Organic Letters Outstanding Author of the Year Lectureship Awards. Both authors will be presented with an award at a symposium in their honor at the fall ACS National Meeting, September 8-12, 2013 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
JOC Outstanding Author of the Year: Dennis G. Hall, University of Alberta
Dr. Hall was nominated for his work on the direct synthesis of amides by condensation of amines and carboxylic acids. His article describes the development of a highly active catalyst to promote room-temperature condensation of acids and amines. The amidation reaction produces increased yields compared to stoichiometric methods, generates products requiring minimal purification and is tolerant to a variety of functionalized substrates.
Direct Amidation of Carboxylic Acids Catalyzed by ortho-Iodo Arylboronic Acids: Catalyst Optimization, Scope, and Preliminary Mechanistic Study Supporting a Peculiar Halogen Acceleration Effect
Nicolas Gernigon, Raed M. Al-Zoubi and Dennis G. Hall
DOI: 10.1021/jo3013258
OL Outstanding Author of the Year: Dale L. Boger, The Scripps Research Institute
Dr. Boger was nominated for his development of a new method for the direct hydro-functionalization of alkenes. His letter describes an iron-mediated radical functionalization of unactivated alkenes with tolerance to a large variety of substrates. The reaction proceeds exclusively with Markovnikov regioselectivity and has been used to prepare a complex and previously inaccessible natural product analogue.
Iron(III)/NaBH4-Mediated Additions to Unactivated Alkenes: Synthesis of Novel 20'-Vinblastine Analogues
Erick K. Leggans, Timothy J. Barker, Katharine K. Duncan and Dale L. Boger
DOI: 10.1021/ol300173v
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The Fall 2013 Kavli Foundation Emerging Leader in Chemistry Lecture
Martin D. Burke, Ph.D., M.D., has been chosen from a slate of outstanding young chemists nominated by 11 ACS Divisions to present this plenary lecture at the Fall ACS National Meeting in Indianapolis on Monday, September 9, 2013.
Beginning in 2013, one Kavli Emerging Leader Lecture is being presented as a plenary event at each ACS National Meeting by an outstanding chemical scientist who is less than 10 years past receipt of his/her Ph.D. and is under 40 years old. The lecturers are distinguished younger scientists who are highly regarded by their peers for significant contributions to areas of chemistry or related multidisciplinary areas of chemistry.
Dr. Burke, an associate professor of chemistry and an Early Career Scientist in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was nominated by the Division of Organic Chemistry. His lecture will lay out a bold and transformative vision for systematizing and fully automating the process of small molecule synthesis. We congratulate Dr. Burke!
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Fall 2012 DOC Newsletter
The Fall 2012 Newsletter is now available online here as a PDF file. It will arrive in Organic Division member's mailbox over the next few weeks. Please make sure that ACS has your up to date physical mailing address so that you can be sure to receive the newsletter.
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Speakers for the 43rd NOS in 2013
The speakers for the 43rd National Organic Symposium (NOS) have been selected. They are:
Erick M. Carreira ETH Zürich François Diederich ETH Zürich Joanna S. Fowler Brookhaven National Laboratory Shana O. Kelley University of Toronto Paul Knochel Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Eiichi Nakamura The University of Tokyo William R. Roush The Scripps Research Institute, Florida Richmond Sarpong University of California, Berkeley Lawrence T. Scott Boston College Hanadi F. Sleiman McGill University Paul J. Coleman Merck Research Laboratories Peter Wipf University of Pittsburgh Jin-Quan Yu The Scripps Research Institute - La Jolla None of the speakers above have spoken at a prior NOS, which is is the premier event sponsored by the Division of Organic Chemistry of the American Chemical Society to highlight recent advances in organic chemistry. The symposium will take place on the Campus of University of Washington in Seattle from Sunday June 23rd thru Thursday June 26th, 2013. For more details on the meeting see the NOS webpage.
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Follow the Organic Division on Twitter
The Organic Division is looking to use more social media to contact members and the organic chemistry community. Thus, we have recently created a Twitter feed (@ACSorganic): https://twitter.com/ACSorganic
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Division wins an ACS ChemLuminary Award
At the the 14th Annual ChemLuminary Awards celebration, ORGN was one of five Technical Divisions to receive an award. The citation reads: "The Division of Organic Chemistry annually awards summer undergraduate research fellowships to outstanding organic chemistry students. The fellowships provide support for undergraduates to carry out independent research at their respective colleges/universities. Students then have the opportunity to visit the Pfizer Global R&D Center and present their research."
The ceremony was held on August 21 in conjunction with the 244th ACS National Meeting in Philadelphia. Awards are made to to recognize local sections, regional meetings, and divisions that receive accolades for their tireless efforts and work in promoting chemistry and the chemical sciences during 2011.
This is the fourth ACS ChemLuminary award bestowed on the Division since 1999.
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Travel Awards
The Division is offering Travel Awards for Graduate Students, Undergraduate Students, and Faculty at Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions for travel to ACS National Meetings. Application deadlines for National Meetings will typically be November 15th for the Spring meeting and May 1st for the Fall Meeting. To learn more, see the Organic Division's Travel Award page.
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Videos: Eminent Organic Chemists, The Human Side
Who are Ron Breslow, Madeleine Joullie, K. C. Nicolaou, and Peter Stang? Of course, we know these as eminent organic chemists. But who are they as human beings? What do they have to say about such topics as: What's the best advice they've ever received? What does "balance" and "excellence" mean to them? How do they choose their projects? What is the source of their energy? What brings them the greatest joy? Have they ever been afraid and of what? Who are their heroes? These and other insights are now revealed as part of a series of short video produced as part of ORGN's Centennial celebrations in 2008. Chemical historian Jeffrey I. Seeman conducted a series of video interviews with 10 prominent organic chemists. One goal of these interviews was to reveal the human side of these scientists. Another goal was to contribute to the archives of organic chemistry. And, according to Seeman, another goal is "simply, to have fun. To enjoy and explore our range of values, breadth of experiences, and wonderful complexity as human beings." The videos can be seen at: http://www.layingthegroundwork.com/chemists/
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Contact with Organic Division Members
The Secretary of the Organic Division occasionally sends email messages to the membership to announce certain events and important due dates. To stay informed of important division activities, members are encouraged to frequently check the division website, subscribe to the RSS feed (See the RSS Feed Information page for more details), and utilize to the division calendar.