summer 2009 - department of chemistry, university of · pdf filesummer 2009 chemistry olympiad...

Summer 2009

Chemistry Olympiad in Cambridge

Protein folding –and misfolding

The automation of chemical reactions

Enthusing the chemists of tomorrow

How did you end up in Cape Town?I’m originally from Zambia, and studied chem-istry there before going to work for a companyspecialising in making explosives for the miningindustry. I was doing everything from nitratingglycerine to its formulation as dynamite powderand the waterproof gelignite forms, and I waseven assembling detonators! I was fortunate thento be awarded a Cambridge Livingstone Trustscholarship for a PhD at Cambridge. I didn’treally know anything about the academic staff inthe department, but I looked through the book-let they sent me and I was seduced by StuartWarren’s curly arrows! So I came to work withhim, and he really laid the foundations for theman I am today. I then moved to Liverpool on aBritish Ramsay Fellowship for a postdoc withNick Greeves, and afterwards with a WellcomeTrust International Prize travelling research fel-lowship went to work with KC Nicolaou at theScripps Institute in La Jolla, California. All along I knew I wanted to go back to Africa

when the time was right. Before I went toScripps, I’d been talking to Jimmy Bull, thenhead of organic chemistry at the University ofCape Town, but it was at the time of the firstelections – 1994 – and I was worried that thecountry would descend into civil war, so I tookthe second postdoc instead. But I kept in touchwith Jimmy, and in 1996 when they advertisedfor a new lecturer I applied. I visited Cape Townand fell in love with it. In some ways itreminded me of La Jolla – coming from a land-locked country and being exposed to the oceanthere, I didn’t want to leave the sea!

Is South Africa a good place to be an academic scientist?Absolutely. At the time I came back to Africa I hadalso been applying for jobs in industry in the USand Europe, but I really wanted to return.Funding is a problem wherever you go – peoplehere often think that in the US and the UK thingsare easy, but I know that they’re not. And in theUS and UK, there are so many good people whoare very talented and gifted, and they still have

trouble getting funding. There, I felt I would be avery small fish in a very big pond, and myimpact would be negligible, but if I came to CapeTown I would be able to make a much biggerimpact. And now I’m setting up a drug discoverycentre at the university that hopefully will con-tribute to Africa discovering its own drugs.

So what’s the idea behind the centre?There is a strategy now from the governmenthere to promote innovation, but if you look atthe value chain in drug discovery, South Africalacks capacity and competence in a number ofareas. One of these is integrating drug metabo-lism and pharmacokinetics into medicinal chem-istry. I think there’s a misconception, which I wasalso guilty of in the past, that the synthesis ofbiologically active molecules is the same asmedicinal chemistry, and it’s not! It’s more thanmaking compounds – it’s knowing which are theright compounds to make in the first place. I’ve worked on projects with GlaxoSmithKline,

the World Health Organization (WHO) and theMedicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), and spentsome time last year in Pfizer’s labs in Sandwich,Kent. By being exposed to these projects I’velearnt a lot about what needs to be done in thedrug discovery process if it is to succeed. If thiscould be shared with my fellow Africans, it willhelp add value. Too often people think that justbecause they’ve made a molecule that kills a virusin a test tube, they’ve got a drug. There’s so muchmore to it than that.My project with GSK involved making small

libraries of compounds in the tuberculosis area,and then my lab was selected to be a centre ofexcellence for synthetic medicinal chemistry,working on hit-to-lead and lead optimisationprogrammes with WHO. I realised everythingI’d done up to that point had not got very far asI just didn’t have this ADME [absorption, distri-bution, metabolism, and excretion] and toxi-cology capability – or even know that it wasneeded to drive the chemistry! And withoutthis ADME involvement in the WHO pro-gramme, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

What do you hope the centre will achieve?The idea is to generate know-how and skills inADME within South Africa for the first time.These are things that are well established andprecedented elsewhere, but have never beendone in South Africa on this scale before. We canlearn from the experiences and failures of thosewho have already embraced ADME principles,and benefit from being able to find out what ishappening to the compound.The aim is to be able to deliver quality pre-

clinical drug candidates that will be developed inpartnership with pharmaceutical companies. Wehope to build a critical mass of people whounderstand medicinal chemistry in terms ofintegrating ADME into drug discovery, and we’rebuilding a technology platform for South Africa.MMV is willing to help me build this platformusing malaria projects as a starting point, and itcould then be expanded into other areas. We’vealso been given funding by the Cape BiotechTrust – one of the government’s regional biotechdevelopment agencies – for the ADME platformitself. This funding will also be used towards thesynthesis and purification platform. The idea isthat it will be a centre of excellence for the coun-try, and ultimately we will spin out a company.

How do you think it might help promotescience in South Africa?Historically, South Africa has not managed tocreate an entrepreneurial culture where peoplecan use science, and many South Africa-trainedchemists do not return after a PhD or postdocin Europe or the US. It’s not just money – Ithink the primary reason for this brain drain isthat people do not have the opportunity andenvironment to fulfil their potential at home. The answer is to create a good science base

here, but there’s no precedent for Africans them-selves setting up entrepreneurial science-basedorganisations – they always looked to peoplefrom outside to set things up. I believe we needsuccess stories that show it can be done inAfrica, by Africans. There are Africans with theright skills and know-how, and they don’t haveto stay in the US or Europe to use their science. Despite decades of natural products research

in Africa by Africans, this is yet to translate intotangible modern pharmaceuticals. The chal-lenge for African scientists is to integrate natu-ral products chemistry research into moderndrug discovery. This is more likely to delivermodern pharmaceuticals, but will also con-tribute immensely to the training of scientistswho are capable of competing internationally. Africa has a high burden of disease, and the

continent has been associated with wars, badgovernment, poverty and disease, but I think it’snot sustainable to expect others always to besolving our problems – they also have their ownproblems they need to solve! So it’s important todevelop the skills base needed to empowerAfricans. Of course, we can’t do it alone, but wemust be able to play an active role. We blamepoliticians for not helping us, but perhaps theydon’t think it’s important as they haven’t seen sci-ence solve anything. Maybe we can change thismindset by creating something that shows whatscience can do, and that it can create jobs. Thatmay make our political leaders respond in a pos-itive way to put investment into science.

As I see it...

Cambridge alumnus Kelly Chibale is setting up a drug discoverycentre at the University of Cape Town. He tells Sarah Houlton more

Chem@Cam Summer 20092

Born: Zambia

Status: He met his wife Bertha in Zambia, and theymarried during his PhD; she runs a catering business.They have three sons: 17 year old Kalaba was born inCambridge, Suwilanji, who’s 15, was born in Liverpool,and Sechelanji is 7 and a Capetonian. ‘We thought ourfamily was completed with two children, but God hadother ideas!’ he says.

Education: Degree in chemistry from the University ofZambia, and a PhD in Cambridge with Stuart Warren

Career: Postdoc with Nick Greeves at Liverpool, then asecond postdoc at Scripps with KC Nicolaou. He wasappointed as a lecturer at the University of Cape Townin 1996, and was made a full professor in 2007. He’salso the director of the South African MRC drugdiscovery & development research unit.

Interests: Football, running half marathons and goingto the gym. ‘I believe in God, hard work and ice-creamwith hot chocolate sauce, even though my personaltrainer tells me it’s bad for me!’

Did you know? The name Chibale means ‘big plate’;Kelly claims that must be why he likes food so much!

CV Kelly Chibale

Fatherly thoughts

Dear Editor,By a rather circuitous route, I have received acopy of the Spring 2009 Chem@Cam, and Iwas most interested to read the article on the50th anniversary of the Lensfield Road Lab.My memories go back to the arrival of my

father in Cambridge in 1944, when I was notquite 5 years old. I do remember the gloom ofthe old Pembroke Street lab, being taken to haveballoons filled with hydrogen by research stu-dents and watching Ralph Gilson, the labadministrator, make glass animals for me. I canremember attending the ceremonial cutting ofthe first sod at Lensfield by my father, withmany of his then research group in attendanceand a small barrel of beer part of whose con-tents were solemnly poured into the hole! I was at school at The Leys during most of the

construction period and from there watched thesteel skeleton of the new lab gradually risingabove the intervening buildings. I remember myfather’s excitement when he was able to move hisoffice into the first section to be completed.Unfortunately, I could not attend the OpeningCeremony, where my younger sister Hilary pre-sented a bouquet to the Princess. Seeing thephoto again, I wonder how much she understoodof purpose of the building she was opening!I spent a few weeks in the lab in the summer

vacation of 1959, at the end of my first year atOxford, working under Dan Brown’s supervi-sion on a part of the aphid pigment project. Thiswas quite appropriate, as my tutor at Oriel, BenBrown (no relation), had worked on the projecthimself when he was a post-doctoral student inCambridge, before his appointment as a Fellowof Oriel in 1955. (Ben was also an Olympic andinternational soccer goalkeeper. A number ofhis fellow-students from Cambridge, togetherwith my father and myself, went to Wembley tosee him play in the Pegasus team, composed ofOld Blues of both shades, which won the FAAmateur Cup in 1952) My own D Phil thesis (1964) was on a topic

related to the aphid pigments, and one of myexaminers was Don Cameron, then working as

a postdoc on the project in Cambridge beforehe returned to Australia to become professor ofchemistry in Melbourne.When I was working in the Lensfield lab in

1959, I remember the shout every eveningabout 6 o’clock, in a broad Australian accent, ‘Isanyone coming for a beer?’, at which a veryinternational group would repair to the PantonArms much as their predecessors had gone toThe Eagle in Bene’t Street.I’m not sure whether the Lensfield archives

contain a copy of the ‘poem’ my father com-posed in the style of William McGonagall:

In Lensfield Road stands the great new chemical laboratory Opened by the Princess Margaret with a great deal of oratory A great many men were employed on building it daily From Rattee & Kett, Kerridge and Johnson & Bailey.

I hope that these ramblings will be of someinterest to you and those who remember theearly days at Lensfield.Yours sincerely, Sandy Todd

Glowing students

Dear Editor,I enjoyed reading about Lensfield Road 50 yearsago, and I have quite a few memories both per-sonal and chemical. I was in Lensfield Roadfrom October 1956 (for Part 2) until August1960 when I submitted my PhDIn October 1956, Professor Longuet Higgins

started a theoretical chemistry lecture at 9amwith the question, ‘Does anyone know if we areat war or not?’ The Suez crisis affected all of us– those deferred as well as those who had donetheir military service. Would we be able to com-plete our Part 2 and go on to research?In 1957 after moving into one of the new

research laboratories for a few days, someonecame into the laboratory with a Geiger counterto reveal that we were radioactive. The store ofmaterials had been placed over our room with-out knowing we were there.That perhaps reflected some of the casual

practices that would never be allowed now. Ihad in my possession a Winchester full ofmonofluoroethanol – sufficient to poison

everyone in Cambridge. A senior member ofthe department came and removed some inorder to deal with a wasp nest at home. Itundoubtedly did the trick, but what we wouldhave happened had there been an accident as hecycled home?Yours sincerelyDavid [email protected]

Lap of luxury

Dear EditorI have followed these articles with interest,because I was in the first group of undergradu-ates to use these laboratories for practical chem-istry at the start of the Michaelmas Term of1956-7. This was when they were opened forPart II students. I took up my allocated space onFriday October 12 1956, and wrote to myfiancée that the labs were ‘very luxurious’ andthat ‘I had more cupboard space there than inmy rooms’. In keeping with the newness of the environ-

ment I had a new white lab coat. For Part I inPembroke Street I had worn a brown lab coat.This had been a very practical garment, exceptthat other students frequently assumed that I wasone of the permanent laboratory technicians.)I was at Corpus Christi College, and John

Harley-Mason was my supervisor in organicchemistry through all three years. I also remem-ber most of the lecturers pictured in the Spring2009 edition of Chem@Cam. Just before I graduated, in June 1957 my

fiancée, mentioned above, became my wife, andremains so to this day. Within two weeks Ibegan a long career with the company thenknown as Glaxo Laboratories, and I stayed withthem in their various corporate manifestationsuntil I retired in the mid 1990s as the externalprojects manager of the chemical developmentdivision of Glaxo Group Research.Peter Sandford2 The Drive, Chalfont St Peter, Bucks SL9 0BD

Turn to page 20 for more readers’ reminiscences!

3

ContentsNews 4

Research 7

Alumni 11

Chat lines 12

Puzzle corner 15

The Chemistry Olympiad, held in Cambridge in July, included a five-hour practical exam!

Photograph:Nathan Pitt

This newsletter is published three timesa year by the University of CambridgeChemistry Department. Opinions are not necessarily those of the editor, the department, or the university.

Editor-in-Chief: Steve LeyEditor: Sarah HoultonPhotographers: John Holman, Nathan Pitt, Caroline HancoxEditorial Board: Brian Crysell, Bill Jones,Jonathan Goodman,Rosemary Ley, Jeremy Sanders

Address: Chem@Cam, Department of Chemistry,University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road Cambridge CB2 1EWPhone: 01223 763865email: [email protected]: www.ch.cam.ac.uk

Cover

LettersReluctant reactions


News

4 Chem@Cam Summer 2009

Merck lecturer Andy

This year’s Merck lecturer was a familiarface – Andy Holmes. The former head ofthe Melville lab is now based in theBio21 Institute at the University ofMelbourne in his native Australia, butreturned to Cambridge to give the lec-tures in May.The Merck Lecturer gives a series of

three lectures in one week. Andy’s gavean insight into his diverse researchinterests – the first was about light-emitting polymers, the second aboutalkaloid synthesis, and the final talklooked at his work probing intracellularsignalling processes.

Jonathan Nitschke’s recent Science paperon describing how it’s possible makewhite phosphorus non-flammablecaused a bit of a stir in the media. Thepaper, entitled ‘White phosphorus is air-stable within a self-assembled tetrahe-dral capsule’, described work Jonathanhas been carrying out with Kari

Rissanen of the University of Jyväskyläin Finland. They have developed a metal–organic

cage from iron(II), and had alreadyfound that it would host molecules suchas cyclopentane and cyclohexane. Butwhat else might fit? White phosphorus,or P4, is about the same size as theseorganic solvents, so they gave it a try –and they found that it did indeed fit.Not only does it fit, but it prevents the

phosphorus from decomposing on con-tact with oxygen, as the intermediate istoo large to fit in the cage. Far frombeing highly flammable, it renders thephosphorus stable for months. It is easyto remove from the cage, by simplyadding a competitor guest moleculesuch as benzene. Jonathan was surprised by the

amount of interest in the work. As wellas the chemistry and science magazines,he says it made it into several newspa-pers as far afield as the Netherlands andAustralia, and was even featured onGerman TV!

Taming white phosphorus

The end of the lab book?

Unilever extends funding

L–R: Alex Lips, Unilever research project director; CV Natraj, Unilever corporate researchsenior vice-president; Sir Dai Rees, Unilever’s former head of research, and Bobby Glen,pictured at CV Natraj’s retirement dinner, which was held within the Unilever Centre

Unilever is continuing to fund thedepartment’s Unilever Centre forMolecular Science Informatics foranother five years. The company is providing a further

£3.2 million to support the centre’sgroundbreaking science.A group of senior scientists from Uni -

lever visited the department in July tosee for themselves how the centre is get-ting on, and take a look at some of thework that’s being done there.Opened in 2000, it focuses on creat-

ing, manipulating and storing molecu-lar data that deepens the understanding

of molecules and their properties, andallows novel in silico experimentation. The centre’s director, Bobby Glen, is

delighted that Unilever has decided tocontinue its funding. ‘The support theyhave given us over the past decade isinvaluable,’ he says. ‘It has enabled us todo exciting science, and we look for-ward the important work we will beable to do in the future.Unilever and the centre also marked

the retirement of one of its strongestsupporters, CV Natraj, by hosting aretirement symposium and dinner inhis honour.

The department is starting the roll-outof a new electronic lab notebook sys-tem. The E-Workbook for Chemists soft-ware was developed by software com-pany ID Business Solutions, and enableschemists to capture, analyse, search andreport their experimental data, as wellas share it with colleagues. It can be used to draw reaction

schemes and chemical structures, aswell as calculate reaction rates. Researchcan be linked with and searched usingany chemistry data source. The project isbeing led by Bobby Glen and Steve Ley,in conjunction with Tim Dickens andthe computer officers.The first handful of chemists will

move over to the new electronic labbook in the coming term, and the planis to roll it out to other users during theyear. Look out for more about the sys-tem in a future edition of Chem@Cam!

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5Chem@Cam Summer 2009

There’s a real risk of fire in chemistrylabs, however careful you are. So it’sessential that chemists know what to doif that fire happens. And that’s why thedepartment runs regular fire trainingsessions, so that in the unlikely eventthat a fire occurs, it won’t be the firsttime the student or staff member hashad to deal with one.The university’s fire safety unit has

been providing us with live fire safetytraining for some time. This used to takeplace using vats of flammable solventsup at Madingley Hall, but after a treewas set on fire they changed theirapproach and started to use a trailerwhich could be moved to different sites. However, this didn’t really address the

sort of fire a chemist is likely toencounter – fires in chemistry labs aren’tlike most other fires because of the flam-mable liquids that are usually involved.So departmental safety officer MargaretGlendenning worked with the fire safetyunit to develop something that providedbetter training for chemists.‘We tried to replicate the sorts of fire

we see in the lab, and looked at the typesof flammable liquid that are common-place in the chemistry lab,’ she says. ‘Thenew training session was designed withthe reality of the chemistry lab in mind,and as well as giving information aboutwhat all the different sorts of fire extin-guishers are for, participants get to trytheir hand at using them. We evendemonstrate just how easy it is to knockglassware over with a CO2 extinguisher!’Mags says that they made an interest-

ing discovery while working on the newtraining programme – a fire blanket isworse than useless in an ether fire. ‘Thehot, flammable vapour passes straightthrough the blanket and reignites aboveit!’ she says. ‘Even the ex-firemen in thefire safety unit were surprised at that,and we managed to set one fire safetyofficer’s arm on fire while practising!’She adds that they tried to replicate

some of the fires involving metals thathave occured in the department in thepast, but found they were pretty hard torecreate. ‘No matter how much sodiumwe threw into a pool of water – the darn

How not to set fire to the laboratory…

One of the recent distinguished visitors to the department wasMartin Mackay, who’s president of r&d at pharmaceuticalcompany Pfizer. He’s in charge of the industry’s largest r&dprogramme, and he gave an insight into the company and someof the most important projects in the company’s research portfolio

Bill Jones hones hisfirefighting skills(left), and Tina Jostshows just whysolvent fires can beso dangerous – andalarming if you’venot seen one before

stuff wouldn’t ignite, and the BuLi was-n’t playing ball either!’ she says. ‘I guessthat just demonstrates the unpre-dictability of chemistry…’They are also trying to develop the

sessions further. For example, in thelight of the recent tragedy in the USwhere a student died after setting hersweater on fire in a t-BuLi fire, they hopeto be able to demonstrate just why wear-ing a lab coat is such a good idea. Thiswill be done by dressing mannequins indifferent clothing, and showing howdifferent types of clothing burns – andhow a lab coat offers protection.The new live fire training sessions are

now taking place every month up on theWest Cambridge site, and Mags says theyare going to be mandatory for anyonewho will be working in the departmentfor a year or more. ‘We’re really gratefulfor all the help we’ve had from the firesafety unit,’ she says. ‘We now havesomething specific for chemistry, andhope it will ensure that if the worst hap-pens and there’s a fire in a lab, everyonewill know what they should do.’

The Prince’s Teaching Institute, an inde-pendent educational charity, runsannual summer schools for teachers.Several Cambridge academics, includingPaul Barker, gave lectures about theirresearch at this year’s event, which washeld at Queens’ College. These lectures are embedded within a

varied programme of debates, lecturesand discussion forums in what is a veryinfluential environment, and Paulreports that the academics’ lectures areexceptionally well received by theteachers. ‘Much of what was presentedwas a real eye-opener for them,’ he says.Paul’s lecture looked at whether mul-

tidisciplinary research requires multi-disciplinary teaching, using the exampleof bioelectronics. He described howbiology does electronics, the evidencefor molecular electronic devices in biol-

ogy and the current state of researchinto engineered bioelectronic devices. He also posed the question of what

scientific education provides the besttraining for research in this area, andargued that the answer is, of course,fundamental chemistry, physics andbiology – plus a bit of maths. His talk was so well received that the-

organisers are very keen to have practis-ing research chemists talk at these eventsin future. ‘Secondary school teachersneed all the support and inspiration theycan get to ensure the curriculum theyhave to teach remains relevant for whatwe need in higher education,’ Paul says. If anyone is interested in delivering a

lecture in 2010 to an interested, recep-tive and very enthusiastic audience, con-tact Paul at [email protected] and hecan tell you more about it.

Teaching the teachers

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News


For 10 days in July, 253 school pupilsdescended on Cambridge to take two ofthe toughest chemistry exams they’llever sit: a five hour practical exam and afive hour written exam, all for thechance of winning gold, silver orbronze medals in this year’sInternational Chemistry Olympiad. Thisis the first time the Olympiad has beenheld in the UK, and it was jointly hostedby Cambridge, Oxford and the RoyalSociety of Chemistry.Peter Wothers, once a participant in

Cambridge hosts the Chemistry In July, more than 250 schoolchildren from around theworld descended on Cambridge for the ChemistryOlympiad, which we hosted as part of the 800thcelebrations. Chris Adriaanse reports on the big event

the Olympiad, has been planning theevent since 2003, overseeing everythingfrom the exam questions to the openingceremony. He was particularly pleasedwith the range of countries winninggold medals. ‘It was great to see Israel,Romania, France and Japan all up in thegold medals,’ he said. Peter was alsopleased with the Brits’ performance. ‘Itwas one of the better years. Four silvermedals was very good indeed.’Each of the 65 participating countries

sent their four top pupils plus a mentor,who were hosted by Trinity, St John’s, StCatharine’s and Robinson colleges.Between exams, the students couldrelax, and enjoy excursions to London,Belvoir Castle, and the high-wire adven-ture GoApe, while the mentors, con-fined to Oxford for the first half, werebusy translating the papers, beforereturning to Cambridge to mark them.Billed as a cultural and chemical

exchange, the Olympiad’s opening cer-emony took on a pantomime themewith ‘Jack and the DNA Stalk.’ After wel-coming speeches from the vice-chan-cellor, the president of the RSC and thechairman of the Olympiad’s steeringcommittee, the pantomime began, andthe participants’ first introduction toEnglish culture was from a middle-agedman in a dress.The first exam was the practical.

Students were split between the depart-ments of chemistry and zoology – five

labs in total – and had three tasks tocomplete. There was an environmentallyfriendly aldol condensation, a titrationof a copper(II) complex, and a calcula-tion of the critical micelle concentrationof a surfactant. This final task was partic-ularly unusual because the students hadto plan their own experiment and itchallenged students to think on theirfeet – this is something that was newfor this year’s Olympiad.Thoughts afterwards were fairly

Left and above:flying through thetrees at Go Ape! inThetford Forest

Belvoir Castle,where activitiesincluded falconryand a tug-of-warcompetition

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Olympiad

unanimous. While the students didn’tfind the practical particularly demand-ing – these are some of the brightestyoung chemists in the world – complet-ing them in the given time, and cor-rectly, was the real challenge. ‘The examwasn’t difficult but there wasn’t enoughtime,’ said one of the Turkmenistan stu-dents. ‘We were very busy. There were somany things to do,’ claimed anotherfrom Singapore.After a day’s break, next up was the

five-hour written exam. There were sixtitle questions: an estimation ofAvogadro’s constant, the interstellarproduction of hydrogen, protein fold-ing, synthesis of amprenavir, epoxyresins and transition metal complexes. The paper was perceived as long and

difficult to complete. ‘More time wouldhave meant more points,’ said a Swedishstudent. ‘The time given was absolutelytoo short’. One from Japan agreed, ‘Wedidn’t have enough time, if we had,then the paper would have been OK’. That evening, with the exams fin-

ished, the mentors and students weretransported to London’s Natural History

Museum, where 600 guests dined instyle in the grand entrance hall. The results were announced during

the closing ceremony in King’s CollegeChapel. Participation certificates, forthose who didn’t qualify for a medal,were given in alphabetical order,whereas medals were announced inreverse rank. In total, 28 students wereawarded gold medals, with studentsfrom China, Israel and Taiwan ranked1st, 2nd and 3rd. Many people contributed to the suc-

cess of the Olympiad. Zoltan Ritter andEmma Powney have been working full-time on it for the past year. The supportof the chemistry department was alsoessential. The lab technicians did a fan-tastic job of setting up the practicalexam, and the NMR staff analysed all thestudents’ samples to check the purity oftheir organic products. Each countrywas also given a guide – mostly bilin-gual Cambridge students – to translateand keep the students out of trouble.Other support from sponsors

included the Goldsmiths’ Companywho provided the medals, and also

from Cambridge Assessment, theSalters’ Institute and the Department ofBusiness, Innovation and Skills (for-merly the Department of Innovation,Universities and Skills).The event was deemed a success, with

many of the students taking home won-derful memories. One Slovenian studentdeclared the event as ‘the best 10 days ofmy life’. Peter Wothers was also pleasedwith how the event went and the groupparticipation. ‘Many of the otherOlympiads haven’t had quite the sameatmosphere,’ he said. ‘A few people havetold me that it the best one ever.’

Seeing the sightsof Cambridge on aCity Trail (left) –and learning howto punt (above)

Students get stuckinto the five-hourwritten exam –and the five-hourpractical exam!

News


Thanks to the generosity of the depart-ment’s Corporate Associates, we havebeen able to benefit the education andenvironment for students and staff. Forexample, the Associates pay for univer-sity-wide access to SciFinder Scholarand ChemOffice. They also make signifi-cant contributions to the library forjournal subscriptions. Moreover, theyprovide exam prizes, faculty teachingawards and summer studentships, andhave recently funded the refurbishmentof a state-of-the-art meeting room withteleconferencing and display facilities.Corporate Associate membership not

only provides essential support for thedepartment, but also provides numer-ous benefits to help members work withus and achieve their business objectives.Members enjoy many benefits throughtheir enhanced partnership with thedepartment, such as:� Visibility within the department;� A dedicated meeting room andoffice for members to use while visitingthe department;� Invitations to recognition days and

networking events at the department;� Access to emerging Cambridgeresearch via conferences, special brief-ings and various publications;� Access to the department libraryand photocopying/printing facilities;� Regular communications aboutupcoming events and colloquia;� Subscriptions to department publi-cations, including Chem@Cam;� Priority notification of and freeaccess to departmental research lectures;� Ability to hold ‘Welcome Stalls’ inthe department entrance hall;� Preferential conference rates;� Free access to the teaching lecturesheld within the department;� The full services of the CorporateRelations team to facilitate interactionwith students, staff, and other parts ofthe University of Cambridge to helpachieve your corporate objectives.If your organisation would be inter-

ested in joining the Corporate AssociatesScheme, then please email Jane Snaith [email protected], or call01223 336537.

ArecorAstex TherapeuticsAstra ZenecaAsyntBiotica TechnologyBoehringer Ingelheim PharmaBPBP InstituteBristol-Myers SquibbCambridge BioTechnologyCambridge Medical InnovationsCambridgeSoftChemical Computing GroupCornelius SpecialtiesDr Reddy’s Custom Pharmaceutical

ServicesGlaxoSmithKline

HeptaresIllumina

Johnson Matthey CatalystsLectus Therapeutics

Maruzen InternationalMerck Sharp & Dohme

NovartisPfizer

Proctor & GambleRoche

Sigma-AldrichSociety of

Chemical IndustryTakeda Cambridge

UnileverUniqsis

The Corporate Associates Scheme

It must be awards season as we’ve gotplenty of prizes won by members of thedepartment to report this issue.Chris Dobson and Jeremy Sanders

have both been awarded importantmedals by the Royal Society. Chris hasbeen given a Royal Medal for his out-standing contributions to the under-standing of the mechanisms of proteinfolding and misfolding, and the impli-cations for disease. Three Royal Medals, also known as

the Queen’s Medals, are given everyyear; this is the second such award wonby Cambridge chemists in as manyyears, after Alan Fersht received one lastyear. You can read more about Chris’schemistry on page 10. Jeremy Sanders has been awarded the

Davy Medal for his pioneering contri-butions to several fields, most recently todynamic combinatorial chemistry at theforefront of supramolecular chemistry. This medal is awarded annually for an

outstandingly important recent discov-ery in any branch of chemistry, andJeremy is in august company. Famousnames from the past who’ve won itinclude Robert Bunsen, William Perkin,

Svante Arrhenius. Previous Cambridgechemistry recipients include ChrisDobson, Alan Fersht, Steve Ley, JohnMeurig Thomas, Alan Battersby, RalphRaphael and Lord Todd. ‘I’m astonishedand overawed to join such a distin-guished list of chemists,’ Jeremy says.A third Royal Society prize, the

Mullard Award, has gone to ShankarBalasubramanian. This is given to a sci-entist whose work makes a contributionto national prosperity in the UK.Shankar’s DNA sequencing technology,spun out into the company Solexa(since sold to Illumina), is making aprofound impact on medical r&dbecause of its speed.Various other members of staff have

won prizes, too, several of them fromthe Royal Society of Chemistry. SteveLey has been given the Perkin Prize forOrganic Chemistry for his outstandingcreative work and innovative solutionsin the art of organic synthesis.One of this year’s RSC Tilden medals

goes to Ian Paterson for his is outstand-ing achievements in the total synthesisof complex natural products. And Oren

Scherman was awarded a Harrison-Meldola Prize for for his work onsupramolecular polymers, in particularin aqueous environments.Alan Fersht’s latest prize is the

Wilhelm Exner medal of the AustrialTrade Society, for his contributions tobiotechnology. Exner was an Austrianpromoter of economy and tehcnology,and the medal has been awarded tomore than 200 scientists and inventorsover the years, 17 of whom were NobelLaureates. Alan describes the list of win-ners as an ‘eclectic mix’, ranging fromLord Rutherford and Lise Meitner toFerdinand Porsche.Jane Clarke has been awarded the

2010 US Genomics Award for the out-standing investigator in the field of sin-gle molecule biology for pioneering thestudy of the mechanical properties ofproteins, protein folding and stability.Meanwhile, Wilhelm Huck has

received the Humboldt Bessel ResearchAward, and Carol Robinson has beenmade a fellow of the Academy ofMedical Sciences. Congratulations to all!

More prizes for Cambridge chemists

From top left:Dobson, Sanders,Balasubramanian,Ley, Paterson,Scherman, Fersht,Clarke, Huck and Robinson

9

News


Yusuf meets his compatriots

Chemistry alumnus Yusuf Hamied was inCambridge in May, and popped into thedepartment before a meeting with thevice-chancellor. He took the opportunityto have lunch with PhD students, post-docs and a Part III student who hail fromhis home country, India.Yusuf worked with Lord Todd back in

the 1950s, and is now chairman ofCipla, the Mumbai-headquartered phar-maceutical company that was foundedby his father in the 1930s.They met for lunch in the Todd-

Hamied Room – the former G14 semi-nar room that was refurbished three

years ago thanks to Yusuf’s generosity,and named after his former supervisor. The group is pictured above with

Yusuf and Bill Jones before lunch. Theyare: Nagaratna Shridhar Hegde (PhDwith Shankar Balasubra man ian),Soumya Daturpalli (MPhil with SophieJackson), Suresh Rameshlal Chawrai(PhD with Finian Leeper), Santosh -kumar Patil (postdoc with Chris Abell),Prashant Kapadnis (postdoc with DavidSpring), Dwaipayan Chakrabarti (post-doc with David Wales), Prasenjit Mal(postdoc with Jonathan Nitschke) andPart III student Nandhini Ponnuswamy.

One of the ways the department is cele-brating the university’s 800th anniver-sary is by offering the a series of openlectures. These will be given by academ-ics, but squarely aimed at non-academ-ics, and are open to everyone.The idea is to give people an insight

into the significance of the research thatis taking place within the department. Head of department Bill Jones kicked

off the series of lectures in April with atalk about his work in materials science,and Carol Robinson spoke about herresearch into biological mass spectrom-etry in June. The next lecture will be given by

John Pyle on 21 September, and willlook at his work in the field of atmos-pheric chemistry.

Bill Jones in lecturing action

Chemistry fornon-experts

Chemistry from Dan Pantos and JeremySanders graced the front cover of a recentissue of the RSC journal Physical ChemistryChemical Physics. Certain amino acidderivatives of naphthalenediimideassemble through hydrogen bonding intonon-covalent polymers that have the formof helical nanotubes. The two enantiomerscan be distinguished by their unusualcircular dichroism spectra, but the originand meaning of the spectra was unclear.This new paper, the result of collaborationwith theoreticians Jonathan Hirst and BenBulheller at Nottingham, shows thatcalculated spectra based on the knowncrystal structure reproduce the solutionspectra remarkably well. This shows thatthe solution structure matches that in thecrystal, and also holds out the hope thatCD could be used to characterise thelength of experimental helical nanotubes

We’re bidding a fond farewell to CarolRobinson, who is returning to Oxford,where she has been appointed to theprestigious Dr Lee’s Professorship. Shestarts there in October. Carol has made very important con-

tributions to the field of mass spec-trometry while she has been in thedepartmetn, first as a Royal Society URF,and more recently as a Royal SocietyResearch Professor. She also receivedinvaluable and generous support shereceived from Walters Kundert Trust ‘I have very much enjoyed my time

here in the department, and I hope verymuch to continue with all my existingcollaborations,’ she says.

Academic promotionsThree members of staff will bepromoted in October: Paul Davies isto become a professor, JonathanGoodman a reader, and Paul Barkera senior lecturer. Congratulations!

Farewell to Carol

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News


The problems caused by misfolded Proteins fold up into beautiful shapes that give them their functions.But what happens when protein folding goes wrong? Chris Dobson islooking at the effects misfolded proteins have on biological processes

CV

Chr

is D

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Born: Rinteln, Germany

Status: His wife Mary is an author, with a newbook due for publication early next year. Theyhave two sons, Richard and William

Education: A BA in chemistry at Oxford,followed by an Oxford DPhil with Bob Williams

Career: He spent three years as an assistantprofessor at Harvard, then returned to Oxfordas a lecturer. He was made professor in 1997,

and moved to Cambridge and the JohnHumphrey Plummer chair in 2001. He’s alsonow Master of St John’s College.

Interests: Watching cricket, travelling andtheatre

Did you know? His father was a British Army Officer who was posted to Nigeria, and Chris spent three years of his childhood in Africa

Chris Dobson’s research has for manyyears focused on protein folding but,more recently, he’s been even moreinterested in their misfolding. Proteinsfold up into beautiful shapes with dis-tinctive features that give them theirbiological functions, but what if thatfolding process goes wrong? ‘Protein misfolding is associated with

many different diseases, from cysticfibrosis through to some forms of can-cer, but it’s particularly important in theso-called amyloid disorders,’ he says.‘These include Alzheimer’s andParkinson’s diseases, prion diseases suchas “mad cow” disease, and Type II dia-betes, in all of which thread-likedeposits called amyloid fibrils areformed, and we are realising all thetime that more and more diseases areassociated with misfolded proteins.’The problem with misfolded proteins

is not just that they lose their biological

activity, but that the misfolded speciestend to aggregate and become insolu-ble, leading to deposits such as the amy-loid fibrils and plaques that are associ-ated with Alzheimer’s disease. ‘All our proteins have evolved to be

able to be present in their folded andsoluble forms under normal situations’.But he describes aggregation-relateddiseases as post-evolutionary diseases,as we are now moving outside the

range of conditions which evolutionhad expected, and within which ourproteins can remain correctly folded.‘We live much longer and our proteinsare not in fact good enough to last for-ever. In addition, we take less exercise,change our diets, put ourselves onlong-term medical treatment, and evenfeed young cows on old cows. All these‘risk factors’ increase the probabilitythat one or more of our proteins mis-folds and aggregates, and perhapsbecomes toxic instead of functional.’In the past five years or so, his group

has broadened its activities from carry-ing out in vitro biophysical experimentsinto trying to determine how theseexperimental data relate to what is hap-pening in a real living system. ‘To dothis we’ve generated a range of collabo-rations, which go from nanoscience toneuroscience, and we’ve been workingwith people whose science is as diverseas Mark Welland, head of thenanoscience centre in Cambridge, andDavid Lomas, who’s deputy director ofthe Cambridge Institute for MedicalResearch,’ he says. Many of the experiments that have

been carried out in his group in recentyears have involved looking at what

Right: the threefolded proteins areSH3, AcP andmyoglobin, andwhile their foldedstructures are verydifferent, but theamyloid structureof all three isessentially thesame, as shown on the right

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Research


proteins

that allow us to predict from very simpleequations when a transgenic mouse willdevelop a prion disease, just from under-standing the basic physics of the process.’‘The assumption has always been that

proteins fold up into the wonderfulstructures with which we are all famil-iar, and that’s their normal state,’ hesays. ‘Our view is now that the most sta-ble structures of proteins are normallyaggregated species such as amyloid fib-rils. But biology has found somesequences that will fold up into theseglobular states, even though they are

not as thermodynamically stable as theamyloid form, and it is these varied andsoluble states that have evolved as thefunctional forms of proteins.’Diseases such as Alzheimer’s and

Parkinson’s therefore appear to showthat if the regulatory control of the bio-logical machinery within the cell is lost,proteins tend to revert to these amyloidforms, which are not only non-func-tional, but also often toxic. ‘Until wereach old age, human biology has usu-ally got everything completely con-trolled, with quality control and degra-dation mechanisms keeping the inher-ent tendency of proteins to form amy-loid fibrils at bay,’ he says. ‘But changingthe balance of these interactions canlead to toxic forms appearing.

LIVING ON THE EDGE‘All of our proteins are destined eventu-ally to turn into aggregates, so we’re living right on the edge between healthand disease,’ he says. And this conclu-sion could result in new ways of pre-venting or even curing diseases. ‘Verysmall changes can cause us to go into a disease state rather than remaininghealthy, but one of the corollaries of this is that relatively small changes can also take us from a disease state to ahealthy one.’And very small perturbations of the

system could, for example, enhance ournatural protective mechanisms. ‘Findingways of reducing the concentrations ofthese aberrant species could have verydramatic effects,’ Chris concludes.‘Because it’s a kinetic phenomenon, rel-atively small changes in the system canincrease enormously the length of timebefore misfolding diseases develop.’

controls the rate and nature of the fold-ing process, how it can go wrong andhow this can result in aggregate forma-tion. Experiments in a test tube are allvery well, but what happens when mis-folding takes place in a real living sys-tem? ‘We have been looking at cells andmodel organisms such as the fruit flyDrosophila melanogaster and the nema-tode worm Caenorhabditis elegans tofind out how we can use our under-standing of basic physical phenomenato understand why processes related toprotein misfolding occur in living sys-tems,’ he says. ‘And our conclusion isthat there seem to be some very“generic” phenomena that occur, and asurprising number of these can beunderstood by looking at the basicphysics and physical chemistry of pro-tein molecules.’Fundamentally, in order to understand

the behaviour of the different proteinmolecules whose aggregation leads to dif-ferent types of disease, only a few coreparameters seem to be important. ‘In con-junction with Michele Vendruscolo andhis group, we have found it’s becomingpossible to set out equations that enable usto make predictions,’ Chris explains. ‘We can predict from our knowledge

of the principles of protein aggregationthe probability that a fruit fly with amutation in a protein will develop neu-ronal damage relative to another fruit flywith a different mutation in the sameprotein that makes it aggregate in a dif-ferent way. We can also do experiments

The power of collaborationChris describes his group and his collaborators as an extraordinarily diverse setof people who select their own projects and self-assemble into subgroups withcommon interests. ‘Some of this extended group are by origin neuroscientists,some chemists, some theoretical physicists, and we have both experimentalistsand theoreticians working closely together,’ he says. ‘They get together anddecide what they want to do, and they have the freedom to collaborate withwhoever they need to. I think it’s a very effective way of doing interdisciplinaryscience, as long as you have people who are both smart and well-motivated.

‘It brings out the best in the individuals, and allows them to develop their ownideas and thoughts about complex interdisciplinary problems, whether they’rethe newest Part III student or the most seasoned PhD students.They takeresponsibility for their own research programme to a large extent, but of coursethey talk to me and other senior members in the set of collaborating groupswho can put what they are doing into perspective. We are able to build up apicture of science across a wide area, because people talk to each other a lotso there’s a continuity of activity rather than a series of separate projects.

‘The opportunity to collaborate with a lot of people working in different disci-plines as well as chemistry is a huge privilege. It’s a very positive aspect of beingin Cambridge – there are so many fantastic scientists interested in workingtogether to tackle major problems, such as the origins of neurodegenerative dis-orders or diabetes, and who make collaboration both a pleasure and a success.’

Chris and hisgroup, picturedoutside St John’s –at least Chris wasready for thephotographer!

Research


Most magnetic materials are based onmetals and metal oxides, but aromaticorganic molecules can also exhibit mag-netic properties if they possess unpairedelectrons. The precise nature of theirmagnetic properties depends on howthe molecules pack together in the solidstate, and Jeremy Rawson is looking atways in which those magnetic proper-ties can be manipulated by changingthe structure and nature of the mole-cules themselves.‘During my PhD, most of my work

revolved around sulfur–nitrogen ringchemistry, and after that, as a postdoc, I studied the magnetic interactionsbetween transition metal ions,’ he says.‘My current studies, which look at themagnetic properties of sulfur-nitrogenthiazyl radicals, amalgamate these twodifferent areas.’

MODIFIED PACKINGThere are many different heterocyclicthiazyl radicals, and Jeremy’s groupfocus on using versatile synthetic strate-gies that allow derivatives with differentsteric and electronic properties to bemade. Changing these properties alsomodifies the crystal packing and, there-fore, their magnetic properties. ‘If you change the way the mol-

ecules pack, it can have a dra-matic effect on its magnetism,’ hesays. ‘We’ve found that even verysmall changes, such as the posi-tion of substituents on an aro-matic ring, can lead to vastly differentphysical properties and orientationalchanges affect the way the radicals com-municate with each other,’ he says.

Making magnetic materials

Radicals have a tendency to pair up,forming bonds. If the unpaired electronis of π-character, then the moleculesoften self-assemble via π-stacking in thesolid state to form these bonds betweenthe unpaired electrons. However, thebonds are relatively weak and, in somecases, if energy is put into the system,the bonds can be broken. This formsnew phases, whose magnetism is vastlydifferent from the original. ‘At low temperature, the molecules

dimerise, giving a diamagnetic mate-rial, but on warming the bonds breakand these materials becomes stronglyparamagnetic,’ Jeremy says. Thisapproach of fine-tuning at the molecu-

lar level has led to the design of aseries of compounds whichundergo such abrupt phase tran-sitions across a broad temperaturerange from around -220°C to room temperature.

‘Although the diamagnetic “bonded”form is more stable at low temperature,there is typically an energy barrier asso-ciated with the phase change which

leads to a lag in its return to the diamag-netic state on cooling.’ The result is a series of compounds

which can be both diamagnetic(‘bonded’) or paramagnetic (withunpaired electrons) in a well-definedtemperature range. ‘It is now possible toswitch the magnetic properties of thesematerials by applying heat, light or evenpressure,’ he says. ‘This sort of respon-sive material which reacts to differentstimuli could have interesting applica-tions, and I’ve recently been discussingpotential applications with colleagues inthe engineering department.’Making these spin-switching radicals

turns out to be a synthetic challenge.The ideal starting materials are aromatic1,2-dithiols, but few are commerciallyavailable. His former student Rob Less,now with Dominic Wright’s group inthe department, developed an elegant(if smelly!) synthetic route to a widerange of derivatives. The key step is the reaction of 1,2-

dihaloaromatics with sodium t-butyl -thiolate. ‘t-Butyl thiol is the chemicalthat is added to natural gas in minutequantities to make it smell,’ Jeremy says.‘Although the chemistry is undertakencareful with a bleach scrubber – andafter informing the departmental safetyofficer through the ‘nasty niffs’ proce-dure – it’s still best used at the weekendwhen no-one else is around!’ He’s currently looking at coordinat-

ing these radicals to transition metalssuch as manganese and iron. ‘We’reinterested in finding out how the elec-trons on the metal and the radical com-municate with each other,’ he says.‘We’ve already made several complexesand have determined their crystal struc-tures. We’re now in a position to beginto probe their magnetic properties.’

Some organic materials havemagnetic properties, and JeremyRawson is investigating how theseproperties can be manipulated

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CV

Jer

emy R

awso

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Born: Rugby, but moved to Leeds when hewas 4 and the Isle of Man at the age of 9,and considers himself a proud Manxman.

Education: After school on the island he hadto move, like other islanders, to ‘TheMainland’ to pursue a university education.He studied chemistry at Durham, followed bya PhD there with Arthur Banister.

Career: A postdoc in Edinburgh with RichardWinpenny was followed by a brief return toDurham as a temporary lecturer. He’s been alecturer in Cambridge since 1996, and iscurrently both director of studies for physicalnatural sciences and undergraduateadmissions tutor at Magdalene.

Interests: Visiting France (and polishing upthe language skills he developed on a three-month spell at CNRS in Toulouse during hisPhD). He’s a keen walker, and is particularlyfond of North Wales and the Lake District.‘They’re much more topographicallyinteresting than Cambridge!’ he says.

Did you know? Science seems an unusualcareer for someone from the Isle of Man – mostof the residents people have heard of havesome link with wheels, from F1 championNigel Mansell to Jeremy Clarkson. And starcyclist Mark Cavendish is a native. Jeremy saysthere is a famous Manx scientist, though – X-ray diffraction pioneer William Bragg went tothe same school as him, albeit rather earlier!

Spin switching inthe thiazyl radicalC2S3N3 on heatingand cooling isassociated with asolid state phasetransition betweena diamagnetic low temperaturephase (above) anda paramagnetichigh temperaturephase (below)

CV

Ian B

axen

dale

Born: Exeter, Devon in a hospital that’s now on thesite of a dry ski slope

Status: Single

Education: Studied chemistry at the University ofLeicester, followed by a PhD in OrganometallicChemistry there with Pavel Ko�ovský.

Career: Spent time working at AgrEvo near SaffronWalden, but in 2000 met Steve Ley in a pub (!) andended up moving to the department as a postdocin Steve’s group. He’s now been awarded a RoyalSociety Research Fellowship, which will helpsupport his research for the next five years

Interests: Scuba diving and travel – the two ratherhave to go together living in Cambridge, he says.He has also been sighted drinking beer on the oddoccasion…

Did you know? Ian is, apparently, anaccomplished mass-murderer. ‘I went on a murdermystery weekend, and I was such a good murdereron the first day I carried on murdering people forthe next two days too!’

Science


Synthetic chemists are extremely skilledat inventing new reactions and synthe-sising complicated molecules. However,optimising reaction conditions and per-forming multi-step syntheses takes time.So what if machines could take much ofthe drudge work out of it? It wouldmake the whole process faster and moreefficient, leaving the chemist with moreprecious time to develop new reactionsand syntheses. Ian Baxendale is trying todevelop new automated systems thatwill speed up routine chemistry.

MAKING MOLECULES‘There’s a big disconnect between whatchemists would like to be able to do, andwhat they can do practically within alab,’ he says. ‘Synthetic chemists are veryimaginative, and these days have incred-ibly powerful search tools and databasesthat help them formulate and rationalisea synthesis, but there is still the issue ofmaking the molecules in the lab. I wantto create technology in a format that iseasy to use so that any synthetic chemistwith an idea can use its automationcapabilities to translate their idea into anactual molecule, or optimise the condi-tions for a reaction.’A key enabling technology is flow

chemistry. Instead of using a standardglass flask, the reaction takes place in anarrow tube. The reagents are pumped

into the tube, and product emerges at theother end, in a continuous fashion. ‘Thiscan give us improved reaction kinetics,better conditions and we can alter reac-tion parameters such as temperature andpressure very rapidly. This cannot beachieved at anywhere near as quickly ina standard lab reaction,’ he says.However, Ian’s not just looking to cre-

ate blind robotic systems – the idea is

that they will also be intelligent. ‘Wewant to be able to give a machine some-thing more than an on–off button – wealso want it to be semi-smart about whata chemist would want to do,’ he explains.‘The idea is to give it some sort of inter-pretive capability that will allow it to doautomatically the sorts of trivial things achemist would spend hours doing andre-doing, such as running multiple reac-tions based on temperature gradients.’And he’s already making progress.

‘We’re now at the point where we canhappily walk away from a machine thathas set itself to optimise a reaction. Itdoesn’t always optimise in the way itwant it to yet, but it’s got the ability tooptimise by changing parameters suchas temperature, pressure and residencetime of the reagents within the flowtube,’ he says.The machinery he’s using is a combi-

nation of equipment that has beenbought and modified, and he’s alsoworked with a lot of the commercialvendors and manufacturers that areoperating in this area. ‘We also havequite a lot of kit that has been created forus in the department’s workshop,’ Iansays. ‘When we walk through their doorit always goes quiet while they worryabout what on earth we want them tomake for us next! They either start smil-ing or frowning very quickly.’

AN INTELLIGENT MACHINE?At the moment, he says, what they haveis a machine that takes a lot of the rou-tine synthetic procedures that canreplace a chemist in the lab, but it’s notintelligent enough to replace thechemist’s brain. ‘However, what it doesdo is free us up to develop the next ver-sion, or to be outside the lab while it’sdoing the chemistry for us.’It gives incredible scope for optimis-

ing reactions and creating data aboutthose reactions, and Ian believes this willultimately mean a system that createsdata rather than compounds will be pos-sible. ‘At the moment, we tend to createcompounds as vials of unpurified reac-tion mixtures which we then interpret. Iwant to create a system that delivers justthe information based on all the chemi-cal reactions it’s done. We can then siftthrough them to pinpoint the right con-ditions for a full-scale reaction. ‘This will save a huge amount of time

– at the moment you could spend twoweeks in the lab screening random reac-tions, and there is no way you couldscreen all the thousands of variables youreally should. So you hope for the best,and are likely to miss the best option.The machine doesn’t get bored, and cantry them all!’

Automatic for the chemistsA machine that takes the hard work out of optimising reactionswould save masses of time. Ian Baxendale’s developing one

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Science day


The department was filled with kids finding out howmuch fun chemistry is on open day. Caroline Hancox,Nathan Pitt and John Holman took the photos

This year’s chemistry department openday was another resounding success,with hundreds of schoolchildren andtheir parents visiting the department tofind out more about chemistry.Pete Wothers’ demonstration lecture

this year was entitled ‘Just add water’,and he gave it three times on the day (andseveral more times during the week!). Heexplored some of water’s extremely sur-prising properties, answering questionssuch as how a drop of water start a fire orcause an explosion, why you can’t put a chip pan fire out with water, and why it’s impossible to boil an egg onMount Everest. There was also plenty of opportunity

for the kids to get their hands on somereal chemistry experiments. They couldextract DNA from strawberries, make vol-canoes using carbon dioxide, use sugar tomake rainbows and lava lamps, and cleandirty coins using household ingredients.They could grow crystals, print photos inPrussian Blue, make putty from everydaychemicals, and use chemical reactions tomake light.

The amazing – if messy – cornflourslime tank made a welcome reappearance,to show it’s possible to walk on liquids.They even got the chance to eat ice-cream,freshly made using liquid nitrogen.We also had an interactive exhibition

from the Centre for AtmosphericResearch and the British Antarctic Surveyexplaining what they do in Antarctica,and a display from the NanoscienceCentre showing how materials 50,000times smaller than a human hair couldchange our lives. The Royal Society ofChemistry were also there with a collec-tion of fun chemistry-based games. These are just a few of the many high-

lights of the day. Our thanks go to Ericand Katharina Walters for their generoussupport once again. The day wouldn’thave been possible without all the helpfrom students and postdocs who super-vised and ran the experiments, as well asthe many undergraduate volunteers. Lastbut not least, huge thanks to the teachingtechnicians for all their help with theactivities and Peter's lecture – they gowell beyond the call of duty.

Chemistry excites the kids

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www.ch.cam.ac.uk


16

Obituary


Alfred Maddock – normally called Alfie –was born in London in 1917, and grad-uated from Imperial College, London in1939. He began a thesis on silane chem-istry with Harry Emeléus, but the warchanged the direction of his research. He was seconded to a special unit

dealing with chemical problems such ashow to render military stores too mal-odorous for the enemy to use: this briefexcursion into tellurium chemistry isgenerally referred to by his wifeMargaret as ‘the time when Alfred smelt’. He was then sent to Cambridge to

join Tube Alloys, the British atomicbomb project. This later moved toCanada, where he met another Imperialchemist, Geoffrey Wilkinson, withwhom he kept in contact untilWilkinson’s death in 1996.

SECRET SCIENCEAlfie’s scientific papers from the periodin Canada are still classified as secret, butone story has become famous. At somepoint the whole stock of plutonium(some 10mg) was spilt on a bench. Heimmediately sawed out the contaminatedpart of the bench, dissolved or burntaway the wood (the story varies) andmanaged to recover about 95% of theplutonium. His co-workers were sur-prised to discover a neat round hole inthe bench the next morning.After the war, he returned to the UK

and helped to set up the atomic energyresearch establishment in Harwell. A lotof scientific equipment was then availablefrom the armed forces, and he found it‘difficult to spend more than £10’000 aday without being extravagant’. However,an academic life was always his ambitionand he moved to Cambridge whereEméleus was now professor. Although he published a few more

papers on silane chemistry, his researchfollowed from his experience inCanada, and more specifically actinidechemistry and the chemical effects of

nuclear reactions. Actinide chemistrywas then in its infancy, and the develop-ment of efficient methods of separationwas just as important as studying thechemistry. He worked on separation ofprotactinium, plutonium, neptuniumand residual uranium. The crowningachievement was the isolation of morethan 100g of protactinium, in collabo-ration with the AERE and AEA, startingfrom what he called ‘60 tons of radioac-tive sludge’. Protactinium is found in very low

concentrations as a daughter product of235U decay, but significant amounts werepresent in residues of pitchblende treat-ment. This must be one of the last occa-sions when an inorganic chemist isolated100g amounts of a new element, and theprotactinium obtained was important forestablishing the chemistry of this ele-ment. The study of solvent extractionmethods and radioactive tracers was arecurrent theme in his research. The Szilard-Chalmers effect was still

new when he began his work, and vir-tually nothing was known about thechemical effects of nuclear reactions onmaterials. His many papers on hot atomchemistry were often written in collab-oration with labs outside the UK. Inter -national collaboration is now fashion-able; in the 1950s and 1960s it was con -sidered highly exotic, but Alfie believedstrongly in encouraging the growth ofscience everywhere in the world. He carried out several missions for

the International Agency for AtomicEnergy. Most of the hot-atom work wascarried out on solid-state samples, andrequired development of analyticalmethods to identify the chemicalchanges in radioactive samples, andcareful analysis of the effects of defectsand of thermal annealing to charac-terise the solid state reactions. Alfie was a pioneer in the chemical

applications of Mössbauer spectroscopy.Together with Mike Bancroft andMichael Clark on the theoretical side, hecarried out elegant studies of chemicalbonding in iron and tin compoundsand developed additive models whichrelated the spectra to the donor andacceptor properties of the ligand. Healso studied other nuclei includingtungsten, iridium, gold, and tellurium. With Mike Bancroft and Roger Burns

he established the potential ofMössbauer spectroscopy in mineralogy.The technique allows not only the iden-tification of iron occupancy of different

sites, but also to follow redox reactionsin minerals. He spent a sabbatical leavein Strasbourg in 1976 and studiedpositron annihilation and the chemistryof positronium. He has been acknowl-edged for his great help in setting upcarbon-14 dating in Cambridge, but Ihave been able to find no publicationsin this field with his name. He receivedmany awards and his contributions tonuclear chemistry in the broadest sensewere quite outstanding.Alfie had boundless enthusiasm for

almost everything, coupled with almostequally extensive knowledge. He was agreat conversationalist, and delighted inargument, never fearing to adopt ratherextreme positions to stimulate discus-sion. He could be a little mischievous,but never unpleasant, and he was heldin respect and affection by the graduateand undergraduate students he taught.

WINES AND STORIESHe loved travelling and had a particularaffection for France, believing any yearwithout a visit was wasted. He had anequal affection for and knowledge ofthe wines of this country (and of anyother) and I can recall the astonishmentof my Swiss colleagues when at a sum-mer school he obtained the highestmarks in a blind tasting of Swiss wines.It would be impossible to finish with-

out some comment on the many storiesconcerning him. Easily the best werethose that he told himself, where hegenerally managed to establish that theremarkable happenings were the resultof a perfectly logical series of eventswhere he was in no way responsible. It is certainly true that it was not his

fault that a visit to Buenos Aires to givea lecture on radiochemistry led theDaily Express to run the front pageheadline ‘British Atom Scientist flees toPéron’. Sadly there is not enough spaceto recount the cases of the flying grad-uate student, the scandal on SalisburyPlain, or Miranda the radioactive sheep.

Alan Williams, University of Geneva

Memories of Alfie Maddock Alan Williams remembers AlfieMaddock, who died in April

Alfie as he was inthe 1950s and,below, a phototaken at in hisgarden at his 1984retirement party

History


The 50th anniversary revisitedIn this second instalment of our look back over the Lensfield Road labs’ 50 year history, Ian Smithrecalls some of the people in Physical Chemistry, and overleaf David Watson brings us up to date

Ian Smith on Physical ChemistryI arrived in Cambridge in 1957, and atthat time the chemistry and physicsdepartments were in buildingsbounded by Pembroke Street and FreeSchool Lane – I’d originally signed upto do the Natural Sciences Tripos withthe intention of studying physics!Evidence of chemistry’s presence inFree School Lane is still there – if yougo to the Whipple Museum and castyour eyes upwards before you enter,you will see ‘Laboratory of PhysicalChemistry’ chiselled in the stonework,in a way that will probably last severalhundred years. I still remember attend-ing first year physical chemistry lecturesin that building, although any memoryof practical work has faded away com-pletely. In my second and third years,my lectures were in the new building inLensfield Road. To use a term more common in the

US, I was one of the class of ’57, alongwith three other stalwarts of the

Cambridge academic staff – StuartWarren, Martin Mays and AnthonyStone. I think we’ve all matured prettywell! Of course, the class of ’57 mighthave been unsurpassed in the brillianceof its members – but I think that all fourof us would agree that it wasn’t only agood time to be young, it was also agood time to be looking for academicpositions. My colleagues spent all theiracademic careers in Cambridge, and Iwas fortunate enough to have a positionhere for most of my academic career.We shared it around a bit – so Anthonywent to theoretical, Martin to inorganicand Stuart to organic, which left me tothe department of physical chemistry. Of course, physical chemistry was

still a separate department at that time,and I think this photo from 1960 wasthe first departmental photograph takenoutside the Lensfield Road labs. I canonly identify two women, Delia Agar,and Mrs Pereira, who came from whatwas then Ceylon and was Tony Callear’sfirst research student – I was his second.And, of course, in those days everyonepossessed a jacket and tie, and theythought it appropriate to wear them ifthere was a departmental photo. There isone who is tieless – but I think he’swearing a cravat! The overwhelmingly male ethos of

the department meant that we found alot of amusement in playing heartygames, and the Sunday morning foot-ball team from that period wasn’t dis-tinguished by its silky footballing skills,but it did contain several future profes-sors of physical chemistry!

Above: Thedepartment ofphysical chemistryin 1960, with onlytwo women

Below: no threatto ManchesterUnited... Standing,from the left:‘Ziggy’ Hathorn,John Clark (?),MIchael Pilling,Ross Dickson, Bill Hardy, AlbertPearson, AdrianTuck and IanSmith; on theground are Gus Hancock, John Billingsleyand David Pettit

Two other aspects of life that havechanged somewhat between then andnow – probably for the better – are thetwo linked matters of smoking andsafety. I remember one academic safetyofficer used to come in to your labora-tory to talk to us about safety and he’dbe inclined to tap his pipe out on yourglass gas-handling apparatus. Nearly allof the academic staff smoked, perhapsmost famously Morris Sugden, whobecame Research Director at Shell andsubsequently Master of Trinity Hall. Hegenerally looked more friendly thanthis photo where there’s a fiendish glintin his eye!The department was led at that time

by RGW Norrish, who claimed a shareof the Nobel Prize in 1967 for his devel-opment of flash photolysis – one of hisco-recipients was George (later Lord)Lord Porter, who had been Norrish’s

Morris Sugden – not as fiendish as he looked!

18

History


years before he won the Nobel Prize,and he was replaced by Jack Linnett as 1920 Professor and Head of thePhysical Chemistry Department. Hisresearch looked at aspects of theory,surfaces and kinetics. He became Masterof Sidney Sussex, and for two years wasVice-Chancellor of the university.Shortly after he’d given up the vice-chancellorship, he died suddenly andtragically young.John Meurig Thomas arrived as 1920

Professor and Head of PhysicalChemistry in 1978, and in 1988 the longawaited amalgamation of the two chem-istry departments took place and we allbecame good and happy friends underthe one umbrella. Brian Thrush was thefirst head of this joint department. At about the same time, Dave King

arrived and took up the 1920Professorship. He became head of thejoint department in 1993, and serveduntil 2000. John Pyle kind of replacedme, I think, in the 1980s, when I left tojoin the University of Birmingham, Hisappointment represented anotherchange in the physical chemistry sec-tor’s interests with astrong move intoatmospheric chemistry. With Rod Jonesand Tony Cox, the Department coveredall the aspects of atmospheric chemistry– modelling, observations in the atmos-phere, and lab work, and, of course,John was made 1920 Professor in 2007.

research student shortly after the SecondWorld War, and was on the staff of thedepartment for a while. The photo withPrincess Margaret, taken at the depart-ment’s opening ceremony, showsProfessor Norrish in rather characteristicstyle. I ought to scotch rumours thatthere was a glass in his left hand filledwith a well known product of Scotland– he did have a reputation for enjoyingwhat he used to call a snifter or two.Of course there were other important

people in the department, particularly ifyou had an equipment-based type ofproject, as I had, and they were thetechnical staff. Ernie Cox was theimplacable man who ran the physicalchemistry stores. He had a ratherunusual concept of a storeman’s task,which seemed to involve protecting, atall costs, the precious items in hisstores. It was quite difficult to extractanything from him that you needed foryour research. Occasionally, conversa-tions could get a little heated.Eric Smith was the photographer, a

very important role because at that timethe most sophisticated way of recordingyour experimental data was on a photo-graphic plate. And Fred Webber was thechief glassblower; he also blew quartz,which is rather more difficult but wasnecessary for my research and for someother people’s.The more recent photos were taken at

retirement parties of the individualsshown. Eric looks pretty much thesame, and he’s pictured with his brotherCyril from the glass shop, who probablywon’t thank me for saying that hetaught me all the glassblowing I knew –he more or less gave up on me I think.Donald Oliver was in the machineworkshop and was extremely helpfuland valuable, and finally there’s BrianChallis, who sadly died a few years ago,who had a general factotum role,including some glassblowing. Norrish retired in 1965, a couple of

�

David Watson on transformationWhen the department was officiallyopened, it had already been inhabitedby research workers for several months.Many of them wished to make their markon the wonderful new building, andsome of them succeeded rather well. Perhaps the most memorable mark

was made by one of Alfie Maddock’sstudents, who was working with pro-tactinium-231 in one of the third floorlabs. But he dropped the vial. Sod’s lawbeing what it is, the vial broke, but thestudent knew what to do – he knewthere was a telephone at the far end ofthe corridor, and so he headed over tothe phone, and put into action all thatneeded to be done for a spillage ofradioactive material. A couple of days later, the decontam-

ination squad came along, and tracedevery single one of his footprints downthe corridor. They all had to be cut out– and that was part of the new buildinggone already!People mourned the loss of the bun

shop and the Eagle which were in closeproximity to the old Pembroke Streetlabs, but all was not lost as there werefive pubs in close proximity. Only twoof these are still here today! But perhapsmore important was the fact that occu-pying the space now inhabited by JohnPyle’s ozone secretariat was a bakers. So

Left: Norrish showsPrincess Margaretaround at theofficial opening –without a glass ofScotch in his hand!

Clockwise frombelow: Eric Smith,Fred Webber and Ernie Cox

19

Chat lines


there was hot, fresh bread for lunch,and cream doughnuts to die for.It’s important to reiterate that when

the lab first opened it actually containedtwo chemistry departments. In the latteryears, many chemists managed to comeacross the same experiment independ-ently – they found that if they left Raneynickel overnight in a filter paper, itwould dry out and spontaneouslyignite. We have had lots of lovely firesover the years.Another fire nearly brought our NMR

section to a premature end. Back in1973, an exothermic reaction whichwell and truly lived up to its nameoccurred on the third floor. It burntthrough the high pressure water supplytank, which produced a marvellousfountain on the third floor, whichflooded down through the second andfirst floors, onto the ground floor andthen into the nmr machines in the base-ment. According to Brian Crysell, thesewere only on loan, and were notinsured at the time! The year 1988 was an important one

– the two departments were finallyjoined together. Brian Thrush was thefirst head of the new department,which was something of a challenge ashe had to sort out all the facilities thathad previously been duplicated – twoglassblowers, two mechanical work-shops, two photographers, two elec-tronics sections and so on.The next head of department was

Dave King, and during this time therewas an incident that would provide a

considerable catalyst to the future of thechemistry department – an explosion ina second floor fume cupboard belong-ing to one of Jim Staunton’s group. The fume cupboard was severely

dented, but Dave felt that enough wasenough. So in his quiet unassumingway (!) he let it be known to the man-darins down at the Old Schools and thefunding councils that wet chemistrymight well have to cease in Cambridgeif something wasn’t done about thestate of the labs. The pleas didn’t fall on deaf ears, and

after a lot of hard work in presentingcases the sum of £28.5m was providedto the department under the JIF pro-gramme. The refurbishment process tookmore than five years, but for the firsttime the academics could actually say tothe architects how they wanted their labsbuilt. We had to do away with the rolledgold and some of the sterling silver thatthey’d placed on their request sheets, butnevertheless it was a real bonus! The icing on the cake was that Dave

and Jeremy Sanders, who was assistanthead at the time, came up with the ideaof a dedicated technical services centre.The original boilerhouse housed twomassive boilers, each at least the size ofa double decker bus, and they convertedthat huge, dark area into a dedicatedtechnical services area. A lot of the technicians needed

persuading – and you can’t blame themas all they could see was a dark dingyplace – it turned out to be fantastic. Anadditional advantage was that it gave

more space in the other two wings ofthe building. After Dave King’s five year tenure as

head of department, Jeremy took up thefight. He had been made assistant headlargely to deal with technical staff mat-ters, which I think most of the technicalstaff will agree was done superbly well.The £28.5 million quickly rose to amuch higher sum, and as we movedtowards 2000 Unilever gave £6.5 mil-lion for the molecular science buildingthat is headed up by Bobby Glen. Thatcame online in 2000, and also allowedus to move the library. Its old space onthe west end of the third floor nowhouses theoretical chemistry. Jeremy saw through just about the end

of the JIF programme, and now Bill Joneshas taken over and is continuing to findmoney for refurbishments, including therecent extension to the Melville lab onthe first floor. The next stage is refurbish-ing the old radiochemistry labs, whichwill become labs for the newMoorehouse Gibson professor, ClareGrey. It’s a huge job, as it involves largeamounts of radioactive decontamination.In conclusion, I recall a retirement

party many years backs for IvorMeadows, who was a wonderful char-acter. He said in his speech that thebuilding is relentless, and we smiled alittle at that. What he perhaps shouldhave said was that the people who drivethe building are relentless, whether aca-demics, researchers or support staff.And I cannot help but think that we willcontinue to go from success to success.

Above: Eric and Cyril Smith, Donald Oliver andBrian Challis

Left: Eric Liddell atthe NMR in 1967

Right: Some of the aftermath of the 1973 fire

20

Alumni


Wot no mechanisms?

Dear EditorI was surprised by the comment that F G Mannwas a traditional chemist who included nomechanisms in his lectures. In the early 1950s Iwent to BC Saunders’ organic lectures, but hadsupervisions with Mann in his room atPembroke Street. To me, he seemed very good onexplaining the mechanisms of organic reactionsfrom the general structures of the reactants. I also had supervisions from Charles Kemball

in physical chemistry, during which he puffedon a very aromatic pipe loaded with MickMcQuaid’s cut plug tobacco, and I think ratherdespaired of me. Also from Dr S R Nockolds inmineralogy, and remember that he had awfultrouble balancing the three SU carburettors fit-ted to his ancient Rover tourer - this was beforethe days of electronic tuning.Apart from Saunders, lecturers then included

John Agar on electrochemistry and thermody-namics, Professor Norrish on photochemistry,Dr Ashmore on catalysis, Dr Johnson on col-loids, Dr Kenner on stereochemistry, and DrsSharpe, Palmer and Boys on inorganic chem-istry. Sharpe was very keen on fluorine chem-istry, which I later encountered in the chemicalindustry. Dr EA Moelwyn-Hughes lectures on physical

chemistry were memorable, varying from veryloud to almost inaudible, as I think he was thenrather deaf. He went to the trouble of inform-ing us that ‘(Little) g is not the same here that itis on the top of Snowdon!’ We also had physi-cal lectures at 4.30pm on Saturdays, rather apoor show, given by a gentleman whose nameescapes me, but he always had the air of havingjust returned from Newmarket.RegardsPaul Stickland (Trinity 1951)[email protected]

Gone in a flash

Dear Editor, Cyril Smith (brother of Eric Smith), the chiefglassblower in the department of physicalchemistry, once told me that they had to movesome giant searchlights, presumably for pre-flash photolysis experiments, from the depart-ment next to the old Cavendish, but one of thesearchlights rolled out of the removal van wasseen to be tumbling down Lensfield Road! Yours sincerely

Rhobert Lewis (Christs 1976)[email protected]

Dear EditorFurther to your correspondence about theColloid Science department, here is a photographof the members of that department in 1944.The department came about after the death

of the professor of physical chemistry, T. MartinLowry, in 1936. At the time, the senior man wasEK Rideal and he would normally have beenappointed, but he was seriously ill and notexpected to survive, so his main assistant, RGWNorrish, was appointed instead, in 1937.Rideal unexpectedly recovered, and his pres-

tige was such that the university set him up asprofessor of a separate department of colloidscience. The department had no fixed teachingduties like the main physical chemistry depart-ment, and Rideal was expert in obtainingresearch grants from industry, so it carried outmuch more research than the main department. I joined the department after I graduated in

1940, when I was recruited to join AFAlexander to study aluminium soap gels as analternative to the rubber gels that were thenused for flamethrower fuels and incendiary

bombs. The invasion of Malaya by the Japaneseled to a shortage of rubber.The Fuel Research Station, Green wich, had

developed aluminium soap petroleum gels forflamethrowers, and we tried to find a suitablemixture for incendiary bombs. In my basementden I had 100 incendiary bombs with yellowphosphorus in the base, filled with water. Wefilled them with our mixtures and explodedthem at the University rifle range. I invented amachine called a ‘splashometer’, which testedthe mixtures in the laboratory.The project was taken over by the Americans

when they entered the war, and their particularmixture used the aluminium soaps of naph-thenic and palmitic acid, napalm. I believe thecurrent mixture uses polystyrene instead.I then carried out a program of studying the

flow birefringence properties of aluminiumsoap gels, using the equipment that had beendeveloped by my predecessor, James Robinson,and eventually obtained a PhD for this work.Robinson recently died in Dunedin, New

Zealand, at the age of 91 after a long and distin-

guished career as Professor of Medicine at OtagoUniversity. He obtained a PhD degree in 1938 forresearch in the colloid science department 1935-1938, where he studied the flow birefringenceof solutions of tobacco mosaic virus under thesupervision of Joseph Needham.Although I have been in New Zealand for 38

years, I never met Robinson to thank him for theuse of his equipment. It now seems it is too late.I recently met another former member of the

Colloid Science Department, Lyndsay Gordon,at a Wellington science meeting. He was theresome years after I left in 1946 and was able torecall the final departure of Professor E K Ridealwho went to the Royal Institution in Londonand regretted it.I do hope that now you can make use of my

memories and my picture, which recalls a groupof dedicated and enthusiastic scientists whoinfluenced chemistry on a worldwide scale.Yours sincerely

Vincent Gray75 Silverstream Road, CroftonDownsWellington 6035, New Zealand

Back row: GDS Mclennan, Eric Hutchinson,Dr Hurst, Philip George, Alan Robertson,Vincent Gray, Dan Reichenberg, HH Jellinek

Middle row: Len Saggers (technician), Fritz (Fred) Eirich, AA Cameron. RA (Bill)Blease, Elizabeth Frith (Mrs Tuckett), AJBRobertson, GD Coumoulos, Paley Johnson,Geoffrey Gilbert, Cyril Smith (glassblower)

Front row: Miss Morgan (secretary), RF (George) Tuckett, GH Twigg, JackSchulman, EK Rideal, AE Alexander, EFGHerington, DC Pepper, Cathy Alexander.

Colloid chemistry in 1940s Cambridge

We always love hearing readers’reminiscences – contact us at theaddress on page 3 if you’ve any-thing to share with fellow readers!

Chat lines


Triathlons are hard work – you’ve firstgot to swim, then it’s a cycle, and toround it off, a run. They vary in length,but the truly hardcore go in for theIronman form of the event – a 3.8kmswim, 180km on the bike, and as if thatweren’t enough, it’s rounded off with afull marathon. And in a fit of bravery (or should that

be recklessness?) Raphaël Rodriguez, apostdoc in Shankar Balasubramanian’sgroup, went for the ironman option forhis very first triathlon in July.‘It was in Nice, and the swim was in

the Mediterranean,’ Raf says. ‘Then thebike ride had 1,800m of climbing! I’dnever swum with nearly 3,000 otherpeople before, and I had no experienceof the transitions between the differentstages. I didn’t know whether I could

Chemists have been gracing UniversityChallenge again – this time represent-ing Clare College. Undergraduate MattCliffe and former chemist GaryMcDowell, who’s now in the oncologydepartment. Gary reports that therewas even some organic chemistryinvolved! ‘We had a fantastic time, but it was

completely different being on the showcompared with shouting the answers

out at home!’ he says. ‘Jeremy Paxmanwas incredibly friendly, and was verytaken with our college mascot, VinWeasel – he even told us it was a verynice weasel and was only too happy tohave his picture taken holding it.’The team lost their first round match,

but scored well and we’re now waitingto find out whether they get through tothe next round as one of the highest-scoring losers. Fingers crossed!

Man-of-the-match at this year’s rugby league varsity matchwas a chemist – James Shearman – who is in the third year ofhis Cancer Research UK PhD in medicinal chemistry, jointlysupervised by Steve Ley and James Brenton at Addenbrooke’s. The match was played at the Twickenham Stoop – home of

the Harlequins teams of both codes – and was even televisedlive on Sky Sports.A band of chemists made the trek down to Twickenham to

support him. ‘It was my fourth varsity match, having previ-ously won one and lost two,’ he says. ‘I was playing prop, andit was fairly close until the last 10 minutes when we scoredtwo tries in quick succession to win by 20 points to 4.’

Chemistry challenged!

Raf’s triple success

cope with such a long distance!’He describes the swim as ‘very vio-

lent’, and after accidentally managing todrink about a litre of seawater, he wasleft with tummy-ache for the rest of therace. And he’d hurt his knee a monthbefore the race, which led to the runtaking him five hours, where he’d nor-mally expect to be an hour and a halffaster than that. The weather wasn’t kindeither – the last 40km of the cycle wasinto a fierce head wind, and the suncame out during the run, sending tem-peratures soaring to 36°C. Many of thecompetitors were forced out of the racethrough dehydration.Raf did amazingly well for a first-

timer, completing the race in just over

13.5 hours, beating more than 1,000 ofthe other competitors. ‘Surprisingly, Iwasn’t particularly exhausted after-wards, although my legs were a littleweak!’ he says. The experience hasn’tput him off – he’s now planning tocompete in the Lanzarote ironman nextyear, which is reputed to be the mostdifficult in the world. And he hopes tofinish in under 11 hours.But why did he take part? ‘I promised

a good friend that I would do the race ifshe succeeded in her university applica-tion. She succeeded, and I raced!’ he says.‘I decided to raise funds for AmnestyInternational as I believe we have theresponsibility to protect human rights. Iwas honoured to represent them.’

James’ varsity victory

James bulldozes his way through an Oxford tackle

Swimming in theMed (he’s in theresomewhere!),cycling andrunning his way toan impressive 13.5hour finishing time

22

Chat lines


It wouldn’t be Chem@Cam if we didn’thave a wedding to report – and thisissue’s Hello Magazine moment is KatyBridgwood, who’s just finished her PhDin Steve Ley’s group.Katy married another chemist, Ian

Casely, at Dalhousie Castle, just outsideEdinburgh. Amazingly for Scotland, shereports that there was no rain! The wed-ding ceremony took place in the castle’schapel, followed by drinks and canapésbefore the wedding breakfast. Eventswere rounded off by a ceilidh, and achocolate fountain. Steve and Rose Ley and several other

group members made the long journeynorth for the festivities. ‘We had baconrolls at 10.30pm – and Steve Ley andWhiffen ‘lab daddy’ Colin Pearson atemost of them!’ Katy says.The happy couple honeymooned in

Florence, before moving to the US. ‘Ianhad finished his PhD in Edinburgh twoweeks before the wedding, and we’reboth now postdocs at the University ofCalifornia Irvine – I’m working forLarry Overman and Ian for Bill Evans,’she says. ‘So now we get to to enjoy thenice sunny southern California weather.It’s a pretty good start to married life!’

A group of department members andassorted family and friends had a veryspecial evening out at the Albert Hall onWednesday 22 July, reports Liz Alan. Therewere16 of us in total, including Bill Jones,Tim Dickens, Chris Wilson, Jane Snaith,Vicky Spring, Sian Bunnage, HowardJones and Mags Glendenning, plus threemembers of Jeremy Sanders’ group.For me, the journey began more than

two years ago, when I was still workingwith Jeremy as head of department. Hewas chair of the 800 Committee, andhad his first, hush-hush, meeting withNicholas Kenyon, then director of theBBC Proms, to discuss a possibleCambridge Prom as part of the Univ -ersity’s 800th Anniversary celebrations. Between them, Jeremy and Bill had

managed to get a handful of the prizedtickets, and Bill put on a minibus to getus there. As soon as we’d left the out-skirts of Cambridge we ate our sand-wiches – and enjoyed pointing outlandmarks on the way in to London,arriving outside the Albert Hall in plentyof time to get a restorative drink!Once inside, having been given flags

and badges at the door, we did somecelebrity spotting, picking out the vice-chancellor and Prince Charles. The Albert Hall was stunning in plum

and gold, and we had a splendid view ofthe huge stage, soon occupied by about

300 members of the combinedCambridge Choirs (including Frank Lee,one of the Department’s ComputerOfficers), and the BBC SymphonyOrchestra. The atmosphere was celebra-tory: the leader of the orchestra ,andthen the conductor, Andrew Davis (aCambridge graduate), were greetedwith rapturous applause.The music got off to a suitably buzzy

start with Vaughan Williams’ WaspsOverture, and was followed by a spe-cially commissioned orchestral piece byRyan Wrigglesworth (a Fellow ofCorpus Christi), The Genesis of Secrecy.When the composer came on at the endhe received a well-deserved and rousingcheer! Vaughan Williams’ Five MysticalSongs followed – a very varied piece,and an appropriate ending for an enjoy-able and diverse first half.After the interval came Stanford’s

Magnificat, and Nunc Dimittis – one ofthe loveliest versions of these familiarpsalms that I’ve ever heard. It was awe-inspiring to hear 300 voices united inperfect harmony. At this point, the fullchoirs left the stage and the spotlightsturned to the younger choirs of St John’sand King’s College. Their unaccompaniedCome Holy Ghost (Jonathan Harvey) wasappropriately haunting, and Ascendinginto Heaven by Judith Wier was by turnschallenging and lyrical.

Don’t drop her! Hubby Ian is second from the right

Then the lights came up again for thelast piece: Symphony No 3 (Organ) bySaint-Saens. I knew I was going to like itas soon as I saw the size of the percus-sion section! However, despite notingthe word ‘organ’ in the title, I wasn’tprepared for the amazingly mightychord, played with all the stops out,which vibrated through the wholeauditorium. It was thrilling! We all(including the VC and HRH) waved ourflags like mad at the end and stampedand shouted our approval. I expect that for some the highlight

was the choral singing, for some thesoloists and for others the Cambridgeconnections which ran through theentire programme, but for me, thatorgan symphony was magnificent! We were still exhilarated when we

boarded the minibus for our return tripthough when I looked back later mostpeople were gently dozing. Quietly wedrove in to the car park at 12.30 am –and all agreed we’d had a lovely time thenight we went to London! Thanks toJeremy and Bill.

Katy’s wedding in a castle

Cambridge goes to the Proms

Computer officer Charlotte Bolton has moved on – not to anotherCO role, but to become a student again as she’s starting an MResdegree in ocean science at Southampton in the autumn. Past andpresent COs were on hand to give her a send-off. From the left: GregWillatts, Mike Rose, Chris Chalk, Dave Pratt, Phil Marsden, Charlotte,Tim Dickens, Catherine Pitt, Robert Cumberland and Stuart Taylor

The Royal AlbertHall was packedwith Prommers forthe Cambridgecelebrations

Photo

: Car

olin

e H

anco

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23

Puzzle corner


£20 prizes are on offer for each puzzle. Send entries by email to [email protected] or by snail mail toChem@Cam, Department of Chemistry, University ofCambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW

Last issue’s winners

M S H C

I T S E

S C

C E R Y

E T

T Y M I

R T

T Y E S

E M R Y

As most of our puzzle correspondents rather like Chemdokus,it would seem churlish to deprive them of their puzzling hitthis issue. As suggested by Tom Banfield, this time it’s simple– not elements but the nine letters of the word ‘CHEMISTRY’.But how simple is the puzzle? I guess the judge of that will behow many entries we get... The usual £20 is on offer to the first one randomly picked

in whatever manner we decide next time around!

A little more Sudoku

Benzene resistanceWe also got a great response to GrahamQuartly’s benzene resistance puzzle.Those who got it wrong shall remainnameless… but these people remem-bered enough O-level physics to send inthe correct answer: John Carpenter,Victor Ostanin, Peter Jenner, DavidWilson, Richard Brown, Kevin Rogers,Julian Huppert, Godfrey Chinchen,Christian Hill, Dave Stone, John Nixon,Norman Sansom, Dorn Nixon, JohnJacobs, David Griffin, Annette Quartly,Jeff Smith (who says that idly flickingthrough Chem@Cam during a coffeebreak, he thought the answer was soobvious he must have misunderstoodthe problem!), Mike Barlow, DaveBorthwick, John Wilkins (who saysthank goodness the puzzle didn’t usebuckminsterfullerene), Paul Stickland,Stephen Marsden, Richard Moss and AJWilkinson, Jim Dunn, Gordon Hall, RegLewis, Hugh Aldred and H. Stokes.And the winner is John Jacobs, who

asked for his £20 prize to be donated tothe Phyllis Croft Foundation for CanineEpilepsy – set up by one of his contem-poraries, and those with long memoriesmay remember that Chem@Cam inter-viewed chemistry alumnus Phyllis abouther wartime experiences and subse-

quent career as a vet back in 2005. As luck would have it, John – who

now lives in Altadena, California – sentin a solution inspired by Lewis Carroll.He says: ‘The problem is a linear oneand may be scaled linearly, hence it maybe worked using 1-ohm resistors. TheRed Queen: “What’s one and one andone and…” Between any two para-car-bon atoms there are two paths, one oftwo ohms and the other 2.5 ohms. Thisresults in a net (no pun intended) resist-ance of 1.1111111.....ohms (Thatshould please the Red Queen, too) Nowadd one ohm each for the two bonds tothe para-H atoms and multiply by 99.Voila, 308!

ChemDokuChemDoku continues to attract plentyof correct entries, and our ‘gets per-sonal’ puzzle in the last issue was noexception. Correct entries were received from H

Stokes, Robin Cork, Reg Lewis (of theinfamous 1946 class), Tony Pike (whosays he’s from the famous 1945 class),Mark Roberts, Ian Fletcher, PeterEntwistle, Bill Collier, John Turnbull, JimDunn, AJ Wilkinson, Andrew Milner,Mike Barlow, Tim O’Donoghue, PaulLittlewood, Tom Banfield, AnnetteQuartly, Mike Harris, Richard

Naphthalene resistanceNot to be outdone by Graham Quartly, when he’d finished the benzene resistance problem from the last issue on his longferry trip, David Wilson decided to go one better, and devisedthis puzzle, based on naphthalene. He was tempted to tryhexabenzocoronene, but that would have been just a bit toobrain-mangling!Anyway. The technician at St. Richard’s heard about his fel-

low technician at St. Anne’s making a model of benzene usingresistors, and decided to go one better by making a model ofnaphthalene. Thus he connectedtwo resistors in parallel to repre-sent a double bond, while singleresistors stood for a single bond.He used the standard Kekulé

model of naphthalene, as shown,but on this occasion simply con-structed the carbon skeleton,leaving out the hydrogen atoms. The resistors that he usedwere each 160 ohms.He intended to connect the nodes representing carbon

atoms successively in pairs to obtain a set of different effectiveresistances. He recognised that there would be a number oftrivial duplications arising from reversal, reflection or rota-tion, but nevertheless expected to get eighteen separate resist-ances, thus:

1→2, 1→3, 1→4, 1→5, 1→6, 1→7, 1→8, 1→9, 1→102→3, 2→4, 2→5, 2→6, 2→7, 2→8, 2→9, 2→10 and 9→10. (→ denotes direction of flow of current)

On checking, however, there proved to be only fifteen valuesof effective resistance available. Explain, for his benefit andwithout using calculation, which pairs of nodes when con-nected yield duplicate values.He then investigated the current flowing from node 9 to

node 10, using only the connections listed above, that therewere two instances in which no current flowed, and just onein which the current was reversed and flowed from 10 to 9.Again, explain without calculation which nodes wereinvolved.Unfortunately, your editor is a hard woman and thinks that

besides sending in these explanations, you should earn your£20 prize by actually calculating the resistance in each case!(The good news is that only in the last case do you need morethan the standard formulae for combining resistances in seriesor in parallel). The inevitable £20 will wing its way to the firstcomplete set of correct answers we randomly select.

1

2

3

410

5

6

7

89

Chambers, Alison Griffin, NeilMcKelvie, Dorn Nixon, NormanSansom, Christian Hill, GodfreyChinchen (now in retirement aftermany years of an enjoyable career incatalysis research at ICI), RichardBrown, David Wilson (who saved thepuzzles for a 24 hour ferry crossingfrom Portsmouth to Santander) andRoger Duffett. The lucky winner picked by this

issue’s random number generator isAndrew Milner, who’s in the mainte-nance section here in the department.Congratulations!

Chem@Cam is written,

edited and produced

by SARAH HOULTON

Printed by Callimedia, Colchester

The students’ sense of relief when the five-hour exams had finished was palpable

summer 2009 - department of chemistry, university of · pdf filesummer 2009 chemistry olympiad...

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