Congratulations Geoff and Ludovico!

Advanced Materials has compiled a special reprint issue, The Best of Advanced Materials, which contains a selection of their most advanced recently published articles in Advanced Materials. Geoff Ozin + Ludovico Cademartiri's recent paper, Ultrathin Nanowires: A Materials Chemistry Perspective was selected as one of the twelve papers to appear in this special issue. Further information is available at, http://tinyurl.com/ychtenk.

Congratulations André Simpson!

Chemistry professor André Simpson of the department of physical and environmental sciences recently founded the Outstanding High School Student Science Awards Program, which recognizes outstanding high school students in the sciences.

Full story available at, https://webapps.utsc.utoronto.ca/ose/story.php?id=1841§id=1

Congratulations Aaron!

Scientists at the University of Toronto have developed a new "lab-on-a-chip" technique that analyses tiny samples of blood and breast tissue to identify women at risk of breast cancer much more quickly than ever before.

"The new methods we've developed may someday facilitate routine screening of clinical samples for analysis of hormones. This may be useful in many applications, including screening for risk of developing breast cancer, especially in high-risk populations, and monitoring the response to antiestrogen breast cancer therapies such as aromatase inhibitors. It could also help in monitoring hormone levels in infertility treatments and in detecting illegal doping in athletes," added Wheeler.

The principal investigators on the project are Aaron Wheeler, Department of Chemistry, and Robert F. Casper, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine. The lead authors of the paper are Dr. Noha Mousa, a PhD candidate in medicine, and Mais Jebrail, a PhD candidate in chemistry.

The full story is available at, http://www.news.utoronto.ca/health-and-medicine/u-of-t-researchers-use-microfluidics-to-create-labonachip.html#more. Aaron was on Global TV on October 7. If you missed his interview you can view the story at, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04l1Wr1VwNs.

Chemical & Engineering News has posted an additional piece on the technique at, http://pubs.acs.org/isubscribe/journals/cen/87/i41/html/8741scic3.html.

Congratulations Eugenia!

Eugenia Kumacheva has been selected by the Royal Society of Canada to promote the Women in Science, Engineering and Technology program. This opportunity is offered to outstanding researchers and communicators who can present their research to a range of audiences. Eugenia will travel to Japan to give research lectures with the goal to raise awareness of women in the natural, applied and health/medical sciences.

Full article available at, http://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/main/eugenia-kumacheva-women-in-science.

Shana Kelley in Toronto Star: Microchip spots cancer quickly and painlessly

Shana Kelley and Ted Sargent appear in today’s Toronto Star about the portable device they say will accurately diagnose prostate cancer in 30 minutes.

"The microchip technology, created by a pair of University of Toronto scientists, will be able to determine the severity of the tumours through a simple urine sample and produce quick diagnosis with no need for painful biopsies."

"The goal would be to produce a result ... while you're sitting in the waiting room," said engineering professor Ted Sargent..."

"We simply put a sample on the chip and we have a nice small chip reader that then analyses it and tells you what markers are in the sample," said Shana Kelley..."

Full article available at, http://www.healthzone.ca/health/newsfeatures/article/701917.

Patrick Gunning was interviewed recently by the Varsity and the article appears in the September 24th issue

"STAT3 (Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3), a protein present in cancer cells, causes drug therapy resistance when it pairs up with another copy of itself. Gunning and his team have developed a way to break apart this cancer protein pair, to possibly increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy. His research team has successfully developed inhibitor molecules that work to stop STAT3 protein activity."

Full article available at, http://www.thevarsity.ca/articles/20384.

Jennifer Murphy was interviewed recently by the Varsity and the article appears in the September 21st issue

"But smog is not a thing of the past: a new study in the July issue of Atmospheric Environment confirms that come May, it will all be back. Professor Jennifer Murphy, Canada Research chair in atmospheric and environmental chemistry, and graduate student Jeff Geddes have found that the last decade has seen no overall smog reduction in the GTA, despite programs enacted by municipal and federal governments."

Full article available at, http://www.thevarsity.ca/articles/20196.

Walker In The News: Minister of State Announces New Networks Part of NSERC's Strategic Network Grants Program-Congratulations Gilbert

Gary Goodyear, Canada's minister of state for science and technology, announced the creation of nine new networks as part of the NSERC's Strategic Network Grants program. Gilbert Walker is leading the Network for Bioplasmonic Systems (BiopSys) which aims to speed up cancer diagnosis by incorporating an emerging technology known as plasmonics into existing procedures that use cancer markers found on the surfaces of cells. Plasmonics--a technique that produces waves of electrons when light hits a metal surface--offers significant opportunities for increasing the types of cancer markers that can be identified simultaneously.

The complete article is available here.

Interview with Scott Mabury

Scott Mabury was recently interviewed by the editors for The Sceptical Chymist. The Sceptical Chymist is a blog by the editors of Nature and the Research journals - and a forum for our readers, authors and the entire chemical community. The interview is posted here.

Geoff Ozin's Nanoscience Expertise

Nanoscience Pioneer Celebrates New Book Launch "Toronto professor Geoff Ozin, one of the pioneers of what has now become nanoscience and technology, celebrated at the weekend the launch of his new book, Concepts in Nanochemistry." The Wiley-VCH BBQ, attended by many of the books and journals editors responsible for reviewing, editing and producing the book, was held in Birkenau, an idyllic little village in the rolling hills on the edge of the Black Forrest in sunny Southern Germany. Full article can be found at here.

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Greg Scholes: His views in Quantum states

Greg Scholes work on how nature takes advantage of the superposition of quantum states to optimize energy transfer in photosynthesis was picked up in the News Scan section of Scientific American September 2009 issue, page 17.

Cell Biomarkers and Olympic gymnastics

Interview with Scott Tanner on measuring cell biomarkers and Olympic gymnastics Scott Tanner was recently interviewed by Ben Merison of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The interview is published in Highlights Chem. Technol., 2009, 6, T65–T72.

We should ban plastic bags?

Banning plastic bags - does it make a difference? U of T Professor Douglas Stephan of Chemistry weighs in

Since Toronto recently enacted a new bylaw whereby retailers are required to charge customers for plastic bags, the question has arisen. "How bad are plastic bags anyway?" To answer that question Jenny Hall of UoT Research Communications recently spoke to Doug Stephan. The interview is available at, http://www.research.utoronto.ca/behind_the_headlines/banning-plastic-bags%E2%80%94does-it-make-a-difference/.

UofT known to be the Best for Cited Research Papers

"The University of Toronto is among the world's best universities for citations for its research, says ScienceWatch.com, an organization that tracks and analyses basic research impact at institutions around the world. In its rankings, ScienceWatch.com found that U of T had a total of 55,163 papers cited a total of 861,243 times - an average of 15.61 citations per paper - over the last 10 years. It specifically mentions UofT scientists Frances Shepherd, Charles Boone and Geoffrey Ozin as researchers with highly cited papers and features them on its site."

Full article available at, http://www.news.utoronto.ca/campus-news/u-of-t-among-worlds-best-for-cited-research-papers.html.

Chemistry department has formula for Olympiad success!

"Andy Dicks escorted a successful Team Canada back from the International Chemistry Olympiad in Cambridge, U.K."

Full article is available at, http://www.news.utoronto.ca/lead-stories/chemistry-department-has-formula-for-olympiad-success.html.

Aaron Wheeler's views of "chemistry and life"

Aaron Wheeler was interviewed recently about his views on 'chemistry and life'.

The interview has been posted on a blog at the Nature website, http://blogs.nature.com/thescepticalchymist/2009/07/reactions_aaron_wheeler.html. A fun read!

Chemistry of Love

"A good love story is hard to come by in chemistry, so when one does come along, it's worth noting." The Stephan group discovered that nitrous oxide (laughing gas) reacts with his famous 'frustrated' Lewis acid-base pairs to give a stable compound of unexpected structure. The full article is available in J. Am. Chem. Soc. DOI and was described briefly in an article "Frustrated Couple Settles for Gases" in the July 13th issue of C+E News. There is another similar article in Nature Chemistry posted at, http://www.nature.com/nchem/reshigh/2009/0709/full/nchem.324.html.

Shana Kelley on the VARSITY

Shana Kelley is featured in the July 6, 2009 issue of the Varsity. "The Kelley lab is developing nanotechnology that could diagnose early stage cancer and other infectious diseases ten times earlier and at a fraction of the cost than is current clinical practice. Their project consists of an electronic chip the size of a dime containing complementary genetic material, or the appropriate antibodies, that could generate an electronic readout to inform doctors of a patients immediate health." Full story can be found at, http://www.thevarsity.ca/article/19434.

Distillations 2007-2008 Magazine

The 2006 Distillations was a great success! We are excited to release the new 2007-2008 Distillations, and it is available to download here.

CONGRATULATIONS AND THANK YOU SCOTT MABURY

The department celebrated Scott Mabury's promotion from Chair of Chemistry to Vice-Provost Academic Operations on June 29th. Thank you Scott for your outstanding contributions to the department as Chair over the past six years and we wish you success in your new portfolio.

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Distillations 2006 Magazine

We are pleased to announce that the 2006 edition of Distillations, Chemistry's alumni magazine, is now available online.

Be sure to check out our Distillations section for all the Magazines!