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45200-SE
31st Reaction Mechanisms Conference, June 2006, College Park, MD

Daniel Falvey, University of Maryland

The 31st Reaction Mechanisms Conference was held June 27th-June 30th at the University of Maryland in College Park. There were 140 attendees, 21 formal lectures and 60 poster presentations. Speakers included Robert Grubbs of CalTech, George Whitesides of Harvard University, and Rustem Ismagiliov of the University of Chicago. The latter was presented with the Journal of Physical Organic Chemistry Junior Faculty Award at the Conference.

The funds from the PRF were used to help support two speakers from overseas: Donna Blackmond, from Imperial College in London, UK ("Exploring the Origin of Biological Homochirality: How Catalysis May Have Played a Role") and Rainer Hertges, from Kiel University in Germany ("Coarctate Reactions").

Lecture and poster topics covered the broadest definition of physical organic chemistry including bioorganic chemistry (e.g. Tadhg Begley of Cornell "Thiamin, a Simple Vitamin with a Complex Biosynthetic Pathway"), organometallic chemistry (e.g. John Hartwig of Yale "Organometallic Chemistry o Synthetic Methods"), gas phase and theoretical chemistry (e.g. Tom Ziegler of U. Calgary "Exploring Reactions Paths on the Potential and Free Energy Surfaces by Density Functional Theory") as well as work classically associated with this field (e.g. Daniel Singleton, Texas A&M U. "Trajectory-Controlled Selectivity and Isotope Effects...")

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