Introduction

Transatlantic Frontiers of Chemistry is a biennial meeting, attended by 100 early career chemists from across the US, Germany and the UK. The symposia are designed to provide an opportunity for delegates to begin successful international collaborations, and to exchange ideas and experience. The programme highlights some of the recent key advances across a broad range of disciplines within the Chemical Sciences. 

Places at the conference are given by invitation from each chemical society, and every participant is invited to either give an oral presentation or to present a poster in one of the designated poster sessions.

Transatlantic Frontiers of Chemistry 2008

The Transatlantic Frontiers of Chemistry Symposium in 2008 was hosted by the Royal Society of Chemistry and was held at Cranage Hall, Cheshire, UK in August 2008.

Delegates at the 2008 symposium

The meeting was opened by Dave Garner, RSC President, together with Gordon McCarty, Director at Large of the ACS and Klaus Müllen, GDCh President. Plenary speaker, Professor David Leigh from the University of Edinburgh began the scientific programme with his interactive talk on synthetic molecular motors and machines.

The meeting showcased first-class research with sessions covering current fields, such as design on the nanoscale, advances in chemical biology, designer materials for the 21st century, molecular transformations and proteins: mechanism, conformation and simulation.

The programme also included two very lively and interactive poster sessions. "The poster sessions were a great opportunity for me to learn about the "state-of-the art" in other fields.  The quality of the posters was outstanding," commented one of the delegates.

Organising committee member Phil Gale from the University of Southampton said "The meeting was a unique opportunity for some of the top young chemical scientists in the US, UK and Germany to get to know each other in an environment that gave us the chance not only to hear the latest results from these groups but also time to network and plan new collaborative projects." 

Participants at the meeting were from a diverse range of disciplines, ranging from chemical biology to catalysis and inorganic materials. "The interdisciplinarity of Chemistry in the 21st century was very well represented. Presentations were of extremely high quality, with delegates making a real effort to explain their work to a varied audience," said conference chair Perdita Barran, from the University of Edinburgh.