Lectures presented at the 39th IUPAC Congress and 86th Conference
of the Canadian Society for Chemistry: Chemistry at the Interfaces,
Ottawa, Canada, 10-15 August 2003
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Foreward
I am delighted to provide a Foreword to this issue of Pure and Applied
Chemistry, which is devoted to a selection of papers presented at
the joint international event comprising the 39th IUPAC Congress and
86th Conference of the Canadian Society for Chemistry.
The Congress and Conference took place in Ottawa on 10-15 August 2003.
In all, despite problems with SARS and an uncertain world situation
in the Middle East, more than 2700 participants, including 850 students,
attended with slightly over 2000 papers presented, 800 as oral presentations
and over 1200 posters. A special effort was made to attract scientists,
early in their careers, to attend. Among those presenting results were
85 young chemists from 45 countries, all of whom had been awarded partial
support from a variety of sponsors. In addition, a highlight of the
opening ceremony was the presentation of IUPAC prizes to 9 young scientists
for essays based upon their Ph.D. topics, and awarded in international
competitions conducted during 2002 and 2003. Although the 21st General
Assembly of IUPAC had been held in Montreal in 1961 and the 28th Congress
in Vancouver in 1981, this was the first occasion in North America that
the national chemical society had joined with IUPAC for the scientific
meeting.
The title of the Conference -Chemistry at the Interfaces- was
chosen to indicate the breadth of chemical science and to confirm the
vitality of our subject not only in the macro-interfaces through its
intellectual thrust from biology through materials science to physics
and computing science, but also within the micro-interfaces of the various
sub-disciplines of chemistry.
The continued progress of the discipline, in addition to its central
status, was outlined by Dr. Arthur Carty, President, National Research
Council of Canada in his opening address to the delegates. As he remarked,
many of the advances in these interfacial interdisciplinary areas
and much of the potential have been driven by three scientific revolutions
which are now occurring simultaneously. The first is the information
technology revolution sparked by the discovery and development of the
all-electronic digital computer. This digital revolution is being rivaled
by a second in molecular biology and biotechnology through genomics
and proteomics which stands to revolutionize health care, re-engineer
agriculture, and help drive a new bio-energy industry. The third revolution,
only in its infancy, is in nanomaterials science. These revolutions,
particularly biotechnology and nanoscience, have one characteristic
which is quite distinctive and appealing in that they are not in the
domain of a single discipline, but are multidisciplinary in nature.
The program included six specific chemical themes:analytical, chemical
education, inorganic, macromolecular science and engineering, organic
and physical, and theoretical. There was also a special symposium devoted
to synchrotron radiation and the opening of the Canadian Light Source
in early 2004. However, within broad symposia topics were areas as differing
as: nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes, environmental quality and human
health, metalloproteins and metals in medicine, activation of small
molecules by early transition metals, polymers in electronics and photonics,
the chemistry of nucleic acids, organic synthesis and chemical biology
and a special symposium on the public understanding of chemistry.
Plenary lectures were delivered by Nobel Laureate John Polanyi (Reactions
at surfaces, studied one molecule at a time); Chemical Institute
of Canada (CIC) Medallist, Raymond Kapral, (A hop, jump and a
skip: Quantum reactions in classical solvents); Professor Jean
Fréchet (Organic chemistry and molecular design at the
interface of biology, engineering and physics); and Michael Gait
(50 years of nucleic acids synthesis: A central role in the partnership
of chemistry and biology).
This Congress publication confirms themes involving the interdisciplinary
aspects,with details of papers delivered in the programs in Macromolecular
Science and Engineering and in the Chemistry of Nucleic Acids, a symposium
held jointly with the Biological and Medicinal Sections. The work described
represents leading edge science in these areas, and it is a pleasure
to see them presented in this manner as a record of the international
meeting.
Prof. Alex McAuley
Congress President
Local Organizing Committee:
P. Sundararajan, Chair, Carleton University, Canada; J. Giorgi, University
of Ottawa, Canada; L. Johnston, National Research Council, Canada; E.
Lai, Carleton University, Canada; C. Levert, The Canadian Society for
Chemistry, Canada; P. Mayer, University of Ottawa, Canada; J. Trohon,
The Canadian Society for Chemistry, Canada.
International Advisory Board:
Robert Gilbert, University of Sydney, Australia; Joshua Jortner, Tel
Aviv University, Israel; J. Fraser Stoddart, University of California,
Los Angeles, USA; Stephen Hanessian, Université de Montréal,
Canada; John C. Polanyi, University of Toronto, Canada; Brian R. James,
University of British Columbia, Canada; Gerhard Ertl, Fritz Haber-Institute
der MPG, Germany; Ahmed H. Zewail, California Institute of Technology,
USA; Steven Ley, Cambridge University, UK; Sir John Meurig Thomas, The
Royal Institution of Great Britain, UK; C. N. R. Rao, Jawaharlal Nehru
Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, India; Norm Dovichi, University
of Washington, USA; Lars-Ivar Elding, Lund University, Sweden; Keitaro
Yoshihara, Japanese Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan.