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46954-SE
Metal-Catalyzed Organic Synthesis, at the 90th Canadian Society for Chemistry Conference, May 2007, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Andrew G. H. Wee, University of Regina

This report is submitted to the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund, which describes the scientific activities that was funded in part by the Scientific Education (SE) Grant. The scientific activities occurred as part of the 90th Canadian Society for Chemistry Conference and Exhibition, which was held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada from May 26 – 30, 2007. One of the symposia in the conference was organized by Drs. Andrew Wee and Laurel Schafer, and was entitled “Metal-catalyzed Organic Synthesis”. The SE grant made it possible for the organisers to invite two international chemists to present lectures in the symposium as well as to participate in the conference. A total of 2000 delegates were present at the conference.

The “Metal-catalyzed Organic Synthesis” symposium consisted of three-˝ day sessions, which was held on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons of the conference. There was a significant mix of invited speakers and contributed talks in an approximate 1:1 ratio, with graduate student and postdoctoral talks interspersed between the talks given by invited speakers. The invited speakers were S. Ma (Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, China), E. Carreira (ETH, Switzerland), C. White (U of Illinois, US), T. Livinghouse (U of Montana, US), H. Davies (U of Buffalo, US), A. Charette (U of Montreal, Can.), J.-F. Paquin (U of Laval, Can.), J. Love (U. of British Columbia, Can).

All the speakers provided a glimpse into their area of studies, highlighting the rich and diverse chemistry of metal-catalyzed reactions that are involved. Topics ranged from the design of new ligands for use in organometallic reactions to improve selectivity, the discovery of novel metal-catalyzed transformations, understanding the mechanism of metal-catalyzed reactions, metal-catalyzed tandem reactions, and the use of metal catalysts for strategic bond formation in synthesis of natural products. Another aspect of the studies that was also highlighted was the drive towards attaining efficiency and atom-economy in chemical reactions. The research studies were of interest to both academic and industrial chemists, and the metal-catalyzed chemical reactions have the potential of finding applications in the fine chemicals and pharmaceutical manufacturing areas. The total attendance of the three-˝ day sessions was around 360 chemists/scientists.

It is useful to point out that our symposium also complements two other symposia at this conference, namely, Green Chemistry (which included many speakers involved in catalysis) and Mechanism and Design in Organometallic Catalysis.

The international speakers, who were supported by this grant award, were Profs. Shenming Ma and Eric Carreira. The detailed expenses are provided below:

Dr. Carreira's Registration: $ 383.87

Ground Transportation: $ 118.47

Dr. Ma's Registration: $ 383.87

Air Fare: $ 1509.36

Total: $ 2395.57

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