05-13 Chem Highlights AMEND:Chem news - University of York

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Undergraduate Chemistry degrees accredited The Department is delighted to announce that all of its undergraduate degree courses have recently been re-accredited by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). This means that all of our BSc and MChem degrees are recognised by the RSC as providing high quality training and skills in Chemistry. York Chemistry is one of the very first departments in the UK to have its BSc degree accredited by the RSC. As part of the accreditation process, independent experts carefully scrutinised our degree programmes. They praised our ‘integrated approach to chemical science teaching and learning’ and ‘high quality problem solving experience’ delivered by a ‘strong cohort of staff’ and the ‘good range of both traditional and modern experiments’, which our students carry out in teaching laboratories. The Department was particularly commended for its varied programme to help students develop transferable skills, which was considered ‘excellent’, and ‘often achieved in a unique way’. “The tutorials are always fantastic, the small group set up means you can really develop your understanding and connect with what your tutor is telling you.” Quote from a current student Chemistry@York February 2013 New Chemistry course pages for KIS To prepare our website for the introduction of Key Information Sets (KIS), we recently revamped the web information for all 16 of our Chemistry degree programmes. KIS has been designed to meet the information needs of prospective students trying to compare different courses from different Institutions. For all of our 3-year BSc and 4-year MChem Chemistry degree programmes we now have separate web pages, with specific and detailed information in each of the following areas: ¬ Overview ¬ Course content ¬ Teaching ¬ Assessment ¬ Careers ¬ Applying Teaching Prominence Teaching Award for Nigel Lowe Congratulations to Dr Nigel Lowe who was awarded a Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Award for 2012. Nigel is the fifth member of the Department of Chemistry to win an individual award, which recognises and rewards excellence in teaching at York. The awards panel commended Nigel on his innovative approaches to transferable skills teaching across the Department, and his use of e-learning to support practical Chemistry. They were also impressed by his engagement with the UK chemical education community through publications and collaborative projects. “The feedback I received on the practical course was very constructive.” Quote from a current student David Smith nominated for THE ‘Most Innovative Teacher’ Stepping up to chemistry ‘Stepping up to Chemistry’ is a web resource aimed at preuniversity students, prior to starting their course here at York. Developed in collaboration with our students, this material is designed to help students with topics that are generally found to be the most difficult (based on student feedback) and to ease the transition to university. We also hope it will prove useful to our students during their first year of study. Topics include quantitative chemistry, laboratory practicals, atoms, ions and quanta, and energetics. For each topic, alongside an introduction, there are sections that include a summary of key points, useful texts and web resources, worked examples, and practice problems with outline answers, including video clips showing walkthroughs of selected answers. We thank our students who helped develop this project, in particular, Katie Lee who instigated the project and Elizabeth Wilcock who expanded the material and added it to the web. Katie developed the material as part of a project in the third year of her BSc degree, while Elizabeth was awarded a student internship to develop the project over the summer between the second and third year of her Chemistry degree. Professor David Smith was nominated for a Times Higher Education Award as ‘Most Innovative Teacher’. This nomination recognises Dave’s novel approaches to student teaching over a number of years and in particular his recent innovations in the use of YouTube, in a project called ‘ITube, YouTube, WeTube, ChemTube’. Dave has developed a YouTube channel (http://www.YouTube.com/professordaveatyork) that aims to explain the organic chemistry of everyday life. He has also enabled York undergraduates to engage with making their own YouTube videos as part of the assessment for their first year Macromolecules course. In this way, the students themselves go on to inspire the next generation of learners around the world. Playlists of these student videos can also be found in Dave’s YouTube channel. New appointment We are delighted to announce that Dr Alison Parkin joined the department as an Anniversary Research Lecturer in October. Alison’s research explores how transition metal centres in proteins activate chemical reactions that are essential for life. “I am having an exciting time as a new member of academic staff. The whole department has been extremely welcoming and it is brilliant to share chemistry ideas and challenges with an inspiring group of research colleagues and enthusiastic undergraduate students.” www.york.ac.uk/Chemistry One of our students, Will Ingram, introduces inorganic polymers on his YouTube video
2012 research award winners Dr Fred Antson Senior Research Fellowship Wellcome Trust Prof Gideon Davies European Research Council Advanced Grant Prof Pratibha Gai Laureate for Europe L’OREAL-UNESCO Women in Science Awards Prof Ally Lewis Royal Society of Chemistry John Jeyes Award Dr Kirsty Penkman Philip Leverhulme Prize The Leverhulme Trust Prof David Smith Royal Society of Chemistry Corday-Morgan Prize Prof Richard Taylor Royal Society of Chemistry RSC Natural Product Chemistry Award Cantor Nanoscience Lecture given by Nobel Laureate On 25 May, Dr Venki Ramakrishnan, (Nobel Laureate and MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge) gave the Cantor Nanoscience lecture: How antibiotics illuminate ribosome function and vice versa. In 2000, his laboratory determined the atomic structure of the 30S ribosomal subunit and its complexes with ligands and antibiotics. This work has led to insights into how the ribosome ‘reads’ the genetic code, as well as into various aspects of antibiotic function. For this work, he shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. After the lecture, the Vice Chancellor awarded a book prize to 3 students who had performed particularly well in their first year; Edward Matthews received the Chemistry prize (pictured below). Chem Highlights Feb 2013 Research Funding Chemists Awarded £800k EPSRC grant Professors Simon Duckett and Robin Perutz were recently awarded an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grant worth £800,000. The grant, entitled “Reaction monitoring on micro-second timescales by nuclear magnetic resonance: aiming for a paradigm shift in the study of reaction mechanisms”, will start in early 2013 and run for 4 years. New scanning technology aims to achieve quicker diagnosis of disease York chemist awarded £480K for soft materials research Professor David Smith has been awarded €575,000 as part of the €4.1 million EU-funded network SMART-NET (Soft Materials Advanced Research and Training Network). Over the next four years, this network will support the training of 12 PhD students across a network of six universities from the UK, Netherlands, France, Spain and Italy, and 3 postdoctoral researchers based in partner companies and government agencies. York chemist awarded £1.8M from MRC Dr Marek Brzozowski, from our YSBL group, has been awarded £1.8M from the Medical Research Council (MRC) to investigate the interplay between diabetes and cancer. This is an interdisciplinary and international programme that targets the key molecular contacts at the insulin receptor complex. The programme has a two-tier approach combining fundamental and applied research. In the very long term, it is envisaged that the research will be relevant to experimental and even clinical intervention of both metabolic and mitogenic (cancer-related) pathways. Professor Simon Duckett is working on new technology that could revolutionise the way in which Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans are used to view the molecular events behind diseases like Alzheimer’s, without invasive procedure, by increasing the sensitivity of an average hospital scanner by 200,000 times. The technology underpinning this project, SABRE (Signal Amplification by Reversible Exchange), has received a £3.6M Strategic Award from the Wellcome Trust. The new grant brings the total support for SABRE from the Wellcome Trust, the Wolfson Foundation, Bruker Biospin, the University of York and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to over £12.5M in the last three years. http://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/features/hyperpolarisation/ Chemists awarded a €2.3 million research grant Professors Gideon Davies and Paul Walton have been awarded a €2.3 million research grant from the European Research Agency-Industrial Biotechnology initiative. The project, which is led from York, has partners in Copenhagen, Marseille and Cambridge. It aims to bring together expertise in molecular biology, inorganic chemistry, genomics, analysis and industry to explore the significant opportunities for bioethanol production created by the recent discovery of GH61 enzymes. A spacefilling model of ethanol www.york.ac.uk/Chemistry
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05-13 Chem Highlights AMEND:Chem news - University of York

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