Page 3 - Periodic ISSUE 8

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From the ead N ews & Achievements

of Department A selection of recent highlights. More news can be found at www.chem.ox.ac.uk

The work of Oxford chemists was recognised polarised systems. Christiane’s work is focused on
in the prestigious Royal Society of Chemistry molecular structures that interact with magnetic
After an academic year like Head of Administration since spring 2020. I owe a Awards, which celebrate outstanding work and fields to explain their physical, chemical and biological
no other, it gives me pleasure debt of gratitude to these colleagues who have made achievements in advancing the chemical sciences. properties.
to introduce the 2020-21 outstanding contributions to the life and work of the
edition of Periodic magazine. Department. Three members of our academic staff, Professor Ed Anderson was named Professor Ben Davis has been
Despite the most challenging Rob Adlington, Peter Battle and Steve Davies, retired the winner of the Bader Award for awarded the Davy Medal from
of circumstances, since June in 2020. Their long-standing commitment to the his creative contributions to organic the Royal Society. Professor Davis,
my colleagues have been able Department and their great achievements and are too synthesis and synthetic methodology. of the Rosalind Franklin Institute and
to continue their wide range numerous to list, but I believe that I speak for everyone Ed’s work involves creating molecules the Department of Chemistry, was
with function, and creating new
awarded the medal for inventing
of ground-breaking research, here in thanking them for their enormous contributions ways to make them more efficiently and selectively powerful chemical methods that directly manipulate
including research into to Oxford Chemistry and in wishing them long and for synthesis as antiparasitic agents, antibiotics and complex biological molecules, enabling elucidation and
combatting Coronavirus; you happy retirements. I am delighted to welcome some anticancer molecules. control of biological function and mechanism in vitro
can read about some of their work on the following outstanding new faculty members: David Tew (Physical and in vivo, beyond the limits of genetics.
pages. I applaud their ingenuity and dedication and I and Theoretical Chemistry) joined us earlier this year Professor Andrew Baldwin won
am very grateful for the efforts of our talented team and we welcome Iain McCulloch to the Organic section the Norman Heatley Award for Sebastian Kopp and Dr Vanessa
of administrative and support staff, whose tireless staff, and Matthew Langton to Inorganic. Thanks his development and application of Restrepo-Schild were selected
efforts have helped to make safe working possible and to the efforts of my colleagues old and new, the chemical methods for understanding to represent the University at
practical. Department continues to go from strength to strength. the biology of membraneless the 2020 Lindau Nobel meeting.
organelles. Andrew’s work focuses on Vanessa is a postdoctoral researcher
Of course, we are currently still some way away from Our wider community of alumni and friends continues large protein assemblies, or ‘aggregates’, whereby one in the Bayley group, and Sebastian
our normal routine, but over the coming academic to strengthen too, and we were delighted by the of the aggregates is linked to disease and the other is a DPhil student in the Anderson group and OxICFM
year we hope to offer our students and researchers very positive response to our centenary campaign to dictates normal cellular function. CDT. The in-person meeting had to be postponed, but
the very best environment possible. I have been support student research. After a century, the role Professor Vernon Gibson of the a virtual conference was held to allow for scientific
supported in these endeavours by Associate Heads played by Oxford Chemistry DPhil students is still University of Manchester, Imperial exchange and networking.
Nick Green (Teaching) and Tom Brown (Research). As crucial; they are using chemistry to help address many College London, and MPLS Visiting Dr Emily Flashman was awarded a
Tom prepares to step down from his Associate Head of the world’s most pressing challenges, from COVID Professor of Chemistry at Oxford, prestigious Consolidator Grant from
role, I offer him my thanks and very best wishes, and 19 to climate change. I hope that you will enjoy reading received the Lord Lewis Prize for his the European Research Council (ERC).
extend a warm welcome to Charlotte Williams, who about some of their amazing work in the following seminal contributions to fundamental The award will fund her research on
became Associate Head for Research in October 2020. pages. and applied inorganic chemistry, and for critical work in plant oxygen-sensing enzymes and
The Chemistry Management Board also welcomes policy setting at the interface of academia with industry how to manipulate them in order to
Grant Ritchie, who becomes Head of Physical and We were saddened to learn of the deaths of three and government. make plants better able to tolerate flooding. Emily
Theoretical Chemistry as Stuart Mackenzie’s term of great former members of the Department this year: Professor Madhavi Krishnan won has also been appointed a Fellow of Reuben College,
office ends, and Janice French, who joins us as our new Jack Baldwin, Peter Day and Malcolm Green. Their the Corday-Morgan Prize for her Oxford’s new graduate college, which will focus on 21st
Head of Administration, following the retirement of pioneering work and achievements brought so much invention of a ‘field free’ trap for century interdisciplinary research.
Rosie Mortimer, Head of Administration from 2014- to chemistry and the world beyond, and continue to confining and manipulating a single Dr Brianna Heazlewood is to receive
20, and Malcolm Bradbury, who has served as interim inspire the young chemists of today. colloidal particle or molecule, enabling an ERC Starting Grant from the
accurate and precise measurements of European Research Council for her
molecular charge in aqueous solution. pioneering research project ‘Taming
the reaction dynamics of paramagnetic
On the cover: A collaborative study from the Timmel, Aarts and Mackenzie groups uses confocal microscopy to image the Professor Christiane Timmel species.’ The ERC grants aim to help
spatiotemporal evolution of magnetic field effects (MFEs) in flavin-doped lysozyme crystals. Due to a number of competing effects, received the Tilden Prize for her outstanding scholars and scientists to pursue
including diffusion and photobleaching of the flavin molecules, the MFE is not uniform within the crystal. The figure is an artistic seminal contributions to the fields their most innovative ideas.
representation by Dr Marcin Konowalczyk of data collected by Victoire Déjean and Jamie Gravell. This work was published in RSC of Spin Chemistry and Electron
Chemical Science (Volume 11, Number 3014 August 2020. Pages 7733–8042. https://doi.org/10.1039/D0SC01986K). Image Paramagnetic Resonance of spin
copyright Dr Marcin Konowalczyk (licence CC-BY-SA).

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