September - December 2013

“Notes from the Head’s Desk” is a convenient, informal information bulletin to keep people in the School of Chemistry informed of what’s happening on a regular basis. For any information to be included in “Notes from the Head”, please ensure it is received by Glenda Oliver (glenda.oliver@monash.edu) by the last Friday of each month.

2013 has once again been a very successful year for the School of Chemistry. By way of example, we have improved our world rankings in the QS (=33rd), NTU (78th) and AWRU (53rd) discipline rankings – making us the most successful School/Department at Monash. Getting to this level is not any one person’s effort, but a collective one with staff and students each playing their role to better the School and its reputation. Our research continues to go from strength to strength, and our teaching is seen as some of the best in the faculty. As you will also see in this edition, David Lupton, Cameron Jones and Leone Spiccia have all received national awards from the RACI this month for the quality of their research over the past decade. Our new model for first year appears to be a resounding success with record numbers enrolling in our second year units – a special mention of Chris Thompson, Mary-Rose Carroll and their team for a fabulous effort. Chris has followed this up as joint recipient of the Deans Teaching Award. We have made a number of excellent appointments that will strengthen our School even further in the years to come and are on track for November 2014 (and on budget) with Green Chemical Futures. The Head of School role can sometimes be a lonely one, but not too often around here. I would like to highlight the continuing efforts of a number of our staff who, through their leadership and generosity, have added significantly to the success of our School and for supporting me in my role. These include our Deputy Head Mike Grace, Phil Andrews, Phil Marriott and Cameron Jones for their portfolio roles in education, research training and research, our School Manager Georg Beilharz and of course, my Executive Assistant Glenda Oliver for keeping me organised and cheery, and for dealing with all the School’s visa applications. The job done by our professional staff across administrative and technical roles, which support our academic pursuits in what sometimes appear to be an unlimited way, also requires special mention. Many of them are on the front line and the face of our School to our students, new staff and visitors alike. Thank you for your continued support of the School. CHAMPS also continues to grow from strength to strength. I would like to take this opportunity in thanking their President, Adam Kessler, for his leadership, energy and ability to make a difference – big steps to fill. Finally, I would like to take this opportunity in wishing you and your families and loved ones a very merry Christmas and a safe, happy and prosperous 2014. Take time out over this festive season to be with friends and family and to recharge for the year to come.

1. Chemistry People in the News Congratulations to: • Amanda Lee, who has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for her thesis,

Understanding pantothenate synthetase: mechanism, inhibition and monitoring of enzymatic reactions.

• Roshani Peiris, who has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for her thesis, Design and development of novel bismuth(III) complexes as antibiotics against Helicobacter pylori and anti-Leishmanial drugs.

• Gagan Kaur, who has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for her thesis, Bioinspired thymine functionalized polymeric systems - from synthesis to nano applications.

• Shaimaa Ahmed, who has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for her thesis, Redox, water oxidation, acid-base chemistry and electrochemical syntheses based on tetrathiafulvalene.

• Mohammad Amer, who has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for his thesis, Extraction of oil from oil shale by new, more environmentally acceptable methods.

• Weiron Yu, who has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for her thesis, Development of monolithic polymers for the use in capillary-based separations.

• Corrine Kluvers, who has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for her thesis, Carbohydrate approaches to delivering therapeutic agents across the blood brain barrier.

• Shima Hashim, who has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for her thesis, Advanced analysis of polyphenols and phytosterols from grapes and grape byproducts

• Professor Cameron Jones who has been awarded the RACI HG Smith medal for 2013.

• Professor Leone Spiccia who is the 2013 winner of the RACI Burrows Award. Leone has also been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

• Dr David Lupton who is the 2013 winner of the RACI Rennie Medal.

• Dr Chris Thompson, who along with Gerry Rayner, Kate Charlton-Robb & Theo

Hughes won the team nomination in the Dean’s Excellence in Teaching award for significant and sustained achievements in scholarly activities that have influenced and enhanced learning and teaching, through developing a novel interdisciplinary approach to incorporate inquiry-oriented learning into Biology, Chemistry and Physics first year practical programmes.

• Dr Chris Thompson and his team who were recently awarded a Special Commendation in the annual Vice-Chancellor's Excellence in Teaching Awards for their project, The IDEA Experiments: Enabling Genuine Inquiry in the Undergraduate Laboratory. This project has received broad acknowledgement nationally for being an ambitious and successful move towards incorporating more inquiry-oriented approaches to undergraduate laboratory student experiences.

• Prof Alan Chaffee who has been appointed to a full Professorship from 1 January 2014.

• Donna Whelan, who won the prize for the best oral contribution by an early career researcher at the recent Australian Society for Biophysics meeting. The title of her talk was Super-resolution fluorescence imaging of changes to microtubule architecture mediated by the rabies interferon-antagonist p3 protein.

• Jenny Luu, who won a poster prize at the international Tage der Seltenen Erden conference is Stuttgart as a proxy for Dan Werner as part of the Deacon/Junk ARC rare earth project.

• Rosey Cox, who was one of 4 winners (from 80) at the recent RACI PhysChem 2013 conference in Hobart. Rosey's poster was titled, New crown ether core-substituted naphthalene diimide cation sensors.

• Marcin Kowalczyk, who gave the best student oral presentation, and Yuji Nakano, who won best poster, at the 38th Synthesis Symposium held at the University of Melbourne in early December.

• University of Bath who have been awarded funding for their Centre in Sustainable Chemical Technologies DTC until 2023. Our School is one of four international partners to this DTC.

• Dr Andy Ohlin and his wife who are the proud parents of a baby boy, Pascal Andrew, who was born on 25 September and weighed in at 3.7 kg.

• Sally Duck who participated in a ride to raise money for cancer research at Peter Mac. Sally raised over $4000 for the cause. A fantastic effort!

• Dr David Collins who has now entered over 10,000 Chem draw structures (and over 4700 records) into his database of Australian plants, PhytoChem Australia. A significant achievement. David also won second prize in the recent Royal Show for Book Binding.

• Our PhD, Masters and Hons graduates from Graduation Ceremony held on 17th October 2013. The graduates were: o In attendance: Shima Hamidi, Amanda Lee, Radha Maganti, Kylie Vongsanga,

Margaret Aulsebrook, Shannon Bonke, Eamon McGuire o In absentia: Simon Bonyhady, Satvasheel Powar, Archana Singh

• The following staff members who have clocked up milestones in their service to the

School of Chemistry:

o 40 years: Roy Jackson o 30 years: Patrick Perlmutter and Doug MacFarlane o 25 years: Liza Verdan o 15 years: Steve Langford and Alan Chaffee o 10 years: Phil Andrews and Lisa Martin

Also: 20 years at Monash - Judy Stewart

Welcome to the School: Dr Nick Gathergood, Visitor with Prof Steven Langford Dr Steffen Meyer, Research Fellow with Prof Leone Spiccia Mr Alvaro Fontana, Visitor with Emeritus Prof Alan Bond Mr Prabu Dev, Visitor with Prof Steven Langford Mr Sean Han Siwen, Visitor with Dr Rico Tabor

Mr David-Daniel Tan, Visitor with Dr Brendan Wilkinson Mr Richard Blackburn, Visitor with Prof Phil Andrews Mr Christian Fuchs, Visitor with Prof Alan Chaffee Ms Elnaz Tamizi, Visitor with Prof Milton Hearn Ms Michely Capobiango, Visitor with Prof Phil Marriott Ms Katharina Kastner, Visitor with Emeritus Prof Alan Bond Mr Marcus Weber, Visitor with Prof Phil Andrews Ms Lydia Wrobel, Visitor with Prof Phil Andrews Dr Ibrahim Tasdemir, Visitor with Emeritus Prof Alan Bond Dr Hisashi Kokubo, Visitor with Prof Doug MacFarlane Dr Tobias Böttcher, Visitor with Prof Cameron Jones Mr Martin Juckel, Visitor with Prof Cameron Jones Ms Michaela Jahn, Visitor with Prof Don McNaughton Mr David Dewald, Visitor with Prof Don McNaughton Miss Yih Ching Ong, PhD student with Prof Phil Andrews & Dr Kellie Tuck Miss Margaret Aulsebrook, PhD student with Dr Kellie Tuck & A/Prof Mike Grace Mr John Kelly, PhD student with Prof Cameron Jones & Prof Leone Spiccia Mr Jacob Grant, PhD student with Dr David Lupton & Dr Brendan Wilkinson Mr Yong Foo Wong, PhD student with Prof Phil Marriott & Prof Patrick Perlmutter Mr Muataz Adnan Ali, PhD student with Dr Jie Zhang & Emeritus Prof Alan Bond Mr Andrei Ungureanu, PhD student with Dr David Lupton & Dr Brendan Wilkinson Mr John Burton, PhD student with Dr David Lupton & Dr Brendan Wilkinson Mr Robbin Vernooij, PhD student with Prof Leone Spiccia Mr Mahasish Shome, Visitor with Emeritus Prof Glen Deacon A/Prof Ming Jiang, Visitor with Prof Phil Marriott

Farewells: Prof Terry Turney, who is moving to Materials Engineering.

Dr Ian Gass, who has accepted a senior lectureship position at the University of Brighton, UK. Dr Kamani Subasinghe, who leaves the School after more than 22 years of service.

Staff profile – Dr Brendan Wilkinson

Brendan L. Wilkinson joined the School of Chemistry in January 2013 as a lecturer and ARC-funded research fellow. Brendan received his undergraduate degree in 2002 and his PhD in 2006 from Griffith University. He joined Professor Antony Fairbanks’ group at the University of Oxford as an EPSRC funded post-doctoral researcher in 2007 and later moved back to Australia in 2009 to undertake a post-doctoral appointment working with Associate Professor Richard Payne at The University of Sydney. Dr. Wilkinson’s research interests are broad and include the use of Dynamic Combinatorial Chemistry (DCC) as a tool for investigating carbohydrate-protein interactions involved with various pathologies, including cancer, inflammation and microbial infection. He also has a strong interest in the use of DCC as a tool for developing adaptable, carbohydrate-based materials.

2. Events and Outcomes Grant Successes Congratulations to the following grant recipients: • A/Prof Andrea Robinson who, along with co-CI's Forbes and Lawrence, was successful

in obtaining a $542,562 NHMRC project grant commencing 2014. The project is entitled, Defining the active insulin conformation.

• Dr Chris Thompson and his team (Thompson, Rayner, Hughes, Kirkup {UTS}) who received an OLT Extension Grant of $30K for their project, Taking Inquiry-Oriented Learning To The Teaching Coalface.

• ARC Discovery grants: o Prof Cameron Jones & Dr Andreas Stasch - $450K o Prof Stuart Batten, Dr David Turner & Prof Glen Deacon - $330K o Prof Phil Andrews - $450K o Prof Don McNaughton & Dr Bayden Wood - $410K o Dr Alison Funston - $360K o Dr Andreas Stasch - $370K o Emeritus Prof Keith Murray (through University of Sydney) - $780K o Dr Ekaterina Pas (though University of Melbourne) - $320K o Dr Chenghua Sun (through University of Queensland) - $330K o Dr Rico Tabor (through University of Melbourne) - $340K

• ARC DECRA:

o Dr Victoria Blair - $389K

• ARC LIEF: o Dr Alison Funston & A/Prof Robert Weinberg (School of Geosciences) - $500K

International Chemistry Olympiad The Australian Chemistry Olympiad team spend time in our School training each year. The competition in 2013 was held in Moscow and our four guys all won medals: Sam Alsop and Alex Turner (Silver) and Ben Anandappa and Chenming Tan (bronze). Congratulation to the whole team on this outstanding effort. Sam will be back in 2014 for another summer school and he hopes to get a gold medal in Vietnam. Alex Turner will be back as a new staff member. 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Congratulations to Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt, and Arieh Warshel on winning the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.

Annual 3rd Year End of Year BBQ, Soccer Match & Lecturer Awards Once again, 3rd year students (and some ring-ins) challenged the more junior of our staff to a soccer match on a cold and wet November day (see below). Despite our international imports from the UK and Spain, the students won out. It appeared everyone had a great time, following sport with a healthy BBQ of sausages and bread. Thanks must go to CHAMPS and Kellie Tuck for organising this event.

Lecturer Awards handed out by the 3rd year students at the BBQ were as follows: Rico Tabor: Best teaching through interpretative dance - for his stunning Quadrupole routine Alison Funston: The Bubblemaster + bubble wrap David Lupton: Alchemist of the Year + "Alchemy" shampoo Ian Gass: Iron (III) Man Phil Andrews: Motherwell FC award - for not showing up (to the awards) Steve Langford: Mr Squiggle Award - for prolific use of the tablet Katya Pas: Schrodinger's gift Maria Triantis: Happiest person in Chemistry Stuart Batten: Walter White Award - for teaching about crystal methods The Planeteers (Enviro Chem): - Tony Patti (Earth) - Rod Hall (Fire) - Alan Chaffee (Wind) - Perran Cook (Water) - Mike Grace (Heart)

Green Chemical Futures

A near map picture of our GCF footprint.

Our GCF model located in the Chemistry foyer

School of Chemistry Alumni Group

We have just reached 200 members on our School of Chemistry Alumni Group on LinkedIn.

This Group allows for our staff and students (present and former) to connect together and is used as a sounding board for ideas in taking the School forward. If you are not a member, join today. Here about some of the great things happening to our Alumni, or read about their career paths. 3. Upcoming Events and Opportunities Advertisements 2014 Reaxys PhD Prize

Full details and submission requirements may be found on the Reaxys PhD Prize Website. All the winners and finalists are invited to attend the 2014 Reaxys PhD Prize Symposium and Poster Session which will be held at the 2014 Reaxys Inspiring Chemistry Conference, September 21 - 24 2014, Grindelwald, Switzerland. In order to help attendance we will provide the finalists and winners with a travel bursary, and will provide complimentary accommodation and registration for conference.

Submissions will open December 16th 2013 and close February 14th 2014. All submissions must be made via the Reaxys PhD Prize website

Churchill Fellowships – 2014

What is Churchill Fellowship?

A Churchill Fellowship is a remarkable opportunity to travel overseas and research a topic or an issue that you are passionate about. It is for anyone who feels they have exhausted opportunities within Australia and would like to see what overseas has to offer. Provided a benefit to the Australian community is evident, you could be considered for a fellowship. How much is a Churchill Fellowship worth?

The amount awarded for every fellowship is different. However, the average is well in excess of $20,000. Who can apply?

Churchill Fellowships are open to Australian Citizen over the age of 18 years. The upper age limit is not restricted but generally awards will be made to those whose major contribution in their field lies before them. How many Fellowships are awarded each year?

Around 100 Fellowships are awarded each year across all States and Territories. This includes general Fellowships and sponsored Fellowships. When can I apply?

Applications open on 1 November and close in mid-February, 2014. No late applications are accepted for any reason. How do I apply?

Applications and referee forms are available from 1st October each year and can be downloaded from http://churchilltrust.com.au/ or contact the National office on (02)6247 8333 to receive an application package via post.

Quote of the month:

Thanks to Yuji Nakano for this month’s quote. Yuji used some of his artistic flair to keep the 3rd

years entertained this semester.