How does chemistry come alive?

On Thursday 27 May 2021 RSC Belgium members and friends were able to explore 'How does chemistry come alive?' in a fascinating webinar with Professor Nick Lane of University College London. Nick described how the continuous reaction of hydrogen and carbon dioxide in the structured environment of hydrothermal vents could have driven the beginnings of metabolism and genetics in protocells at the origin of life on our Earth. 

You can access our video of the webinar either below or via the new RSC Belgium Youtube channel.  

Nick previously talked to us about his fascinating work on bioenergetics, evolution and the origin of life in 2014. He is an evolutionary biochemist and writer in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at UCLondon. He was awarded the inaugural UCL Provost's Venture Research Prize for his research on evolutionary biochemistry and bioenergetics and his current work focuses on the origin of life, and the origin and evolution of eukaryotes. He was a founding member of the UCL Consortium for Mitochondrial Research, and leads the UCL Research Frontiers Origins of Life programme.

Towards a Hydrogen-based Economy

On the evening of 11 February 2020 a large audience of RSC Belgium members and friends gathered at the British School of Brussels to hear Prof Joris Proost from the Universite Catholique de Louvain deliver a talk entitled 'Towards the Hydrogen Economy: Challenges and Pitfalls'. This lecture followed on from our Cafe Chimique event in November 2019 where Prof Proost was originally hoping to contribute but had to withdraw.

Prof Proost took the audience through the issues around a transition towards a hydrogen-based economy and society. The global energy system requires a profound transformation to achieve the targets of the Paris Agreement and in this context, low-carbon electricity from renewable energy sources may become the preferred energy carrier. The share of electricity in all of the energy consumed by end users worldwide would need to increase to 40% in 2050 to achieve the decarbonised energy world envisaged by the Paris Agreement.

However, Prof Proost pointed out that the total decarbonisation of certain sectors, such as transport, industry and uses that require high-grade heat, may be difficult purely by means of electrification. This challenge could be addressed by hydrogen from renewables, allowing large amounts of renewable energy to be channeled from the power sector into the end-use sectors. Hydrogen could therefore be the missing link in the energy transition with renewable electricity used to produce green hydrogen (via water electrolysis), which can in turn provide energy to sectors otherwise difficult to decarbonise through electrification.

Prof Proost emphasised three characteristics of the use of hydrogen that as an energy vector compared to fossil fuels: 1/ it embodied a zero tolerance for carbon (vital to reach climate change targets); 2/ it represented a potential doubling of efficiency; and 3/ it was fully reversible.

Hydrogen sectors

Hydrogen is widely used in several industry sectors (refineries, ammonia production, bulk chemicals, etc.), with the vast majority of it currently being produced from natural gas by steam-methane reforming (SMR). Green hydrogen from renewables could replace such fossil fuel-based feedstocks in high-emission applications.

In the transport sector, fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) provide a low-carbon mobility option when the hydrogen is produced from renewable energy sources, and offer driving performances comparable to conventional vehicles. FCEVs are complementary to battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and can overcome some of the current limitations of batteries (weight, driving range and refuelling time) in the medium to high duty cycle segments. But in the longer run, electrofuels (e-fuels - liquid fuels produced from renewable power) can replace fossil fuels without the need to change end-use technologies.

The talk stimulated a lively question and answer session. Useful report for further reading on the subject is the IRENA report 'Hydrogen from renewable power: Technology outlook for the energy transition' that was published in 2018 and the IEA Report 'The Future of Hydrogen', published in 2019.

Hydrogen expert

Prof. dr. ir. Joris Proost holds a Master and PhD in Materials and Process Engineering from Louvain University (KUL) and after spending three years at Harvard University, he joined the Faculty of Louvain University at Louvain-la-Neuve (UCLouvain) in 2003, where he has been a tenured Full Professor since 2009. His current research interests focus on electrochemical process intensification, with a particular interest on developing new reactor and electrode technologies for renewable hydrogen production. Prof. Proost is currently the Belgian representative at the Hydrogen Technology Collaboration Program (TCP) of the International Energy Agency (IEA), for which he is involved as one of the sub-task leaders on Power-to-Hydrogen. He was also invited as a participant of the high-level strategic IEA H2 workshop in February 2019 in Paris, and acted as a Peer Reviewer of the resulting report that was launched mid-June 2019 at the meeting of the G20 energy ministers in Tokyo.

Memorial Symposium for Prof Istvan Marko

On 12 and 13 September 2019 RSC Belgium was proud to sponsor a memorial symposium for our good friend and supporter Professor Istvan Marko at the Universite Catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) in Louvain-La-Neuve. Presentations at the symposium entitled 'Organic Chemistry and The Synthesis of Complex Molecules - A tribute to István Marko' featured contributions from Istvan's many friends and colleagues including two Nobel Prize winners. It was followed by a reception and a dinner on Friday evening.

Istvan E Marko was born in Hungary in 1956 but his family fled the Soviet invasion of that year and settled in Belgium. After schooling in Wavre, István studied for a Licence en Sciences Chimiques at UCLouvain (Belgium) from 1974 to 1978 and then obtained his PhD in 1983 under the supervision of Professor L. Ghosez on the 'Semi-synthesis of Tricyclic Penicillins'. Between 1983 and 1985 he undertook postdoctoral studies in Ghosez's group on Intramolecular Keteniminium Cycloadditions: A New Route Towards Prostaglandins.

Then between 1985 and 1987, he moved to Burlington (University of Vermont, Vermont, USA), working in the group of Professor M.E Kuehne ("Biomimetic Total Synthesis of Monoterpene Indole Alkaloids and Binary Vinca Alkaloids") before joining in 1987 the research group of professor Barry Sharpless (MIT, Massachusetts, USA) working on the Catalytic Asymmetric Osmylation of Olefins. Barry Sharpless later won the 2001 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on Olefins and sent a video contribution to the symposium. Istvan also collaborated with 2016 Nobel Prize winner Ben Feringa who gave an outstanding presentation at the symposium (See photo below).

In 1988, Istvan decided to move back to Europe to take up a lecturer position in the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom), where he stayed for 5 years. In 1993 he had the opportunity to come back to his alma mater, where  he was in charge of the Laboratoire de Chimie Organique et Médicinale for 24 years until his untimely death in 2017.

As a professor, Istvan gave courses to bachelor's and master's students of chemistry and bio-engineering (Organic chemistry, Medicinal chemistry, Applied organic chemistry, Biosynthesis and total synthesis of natural products and Industrial chemistry…).

The main research areas in his laboratory included: Short, efficient and stereocontrolled total synthesis of natural products; Extraction, purification and structure identification of novel natural products; Development of new methodologies based on multiple bonds and ring formation; Asymmetric catalysis with and without metals; New organometallic reagents; Anionic polycyclisation reactions; Electroorganic synthesis; Development of ecological processes; Botanochemistry; Use of enzymes and microorganisms in organic chemistry; and Use of CO2 as a basic 1- carbon unit.

In the course of his career, Professor Markó supervised 39 post-docs, 66 PhD students, 92 master's students and 58 bachelor's students.

In January 1995, a group of young chemists including István Markó, launched the European Chemical Society (ECS), which at its inception, anticipated working together with the existing national chemical societies to promote chemistry at the European level. 

He was the author of over 250 publications, more than 200 of them in refereed journals, 19 patents and 16 reviews for books, as well as 38 articles in Belgian newspapers on "Chemistry in our Society". He delivered more than 20 general public lectures on "the key-role of chemistry in our modern society" and gave more than 350 conferences worldwide.

István regularly took part in television broadcasts (RTBF and RTLtvi) to popularise science in order

to make it more accessible, notably in collaboration with RSC Belgium, in order to encourage younger pupils to get excited about science, and in particular Chemistry. He was particularly active, together with his faithful technician Fabio Lucaccioni, in performing chemistry shows for schools.

Professor Marko was able to generate the desire to do chemistry among many students, even those outside of organic chemistry. We are proud to salute a truly great Scientist, Professor, Mentor and Friend! Thank you Istvan!

You can access Istvan's full biography here and download a commemorative booklet produced for the symposium here.

A Kind of Blue

On the evening of Wednesday 17 October, RSC Belgium welcomed science and art fans to the Performing Arts Centre at St. Johns International School in Waterloo to hear from David Dobson, Professor of Earth Materials at University College London (UCL). The subject was  'Blue'.

The colour blue has been the rarest and most expensive pigment, for centuries reserved  for emperors and gods. Even today modern blue pigments command a premium and finding a good all-round blue is an ongoing area of research.  Blue minerals are very rare - the commonest colour-producing element, iron, normally makes greens, yellow and reds. As a consequence, this was the available pallet for most of human history, but with increased travel in the late Middle Ages and the development of synthetic technologies at various times in our history blue became available to the richest patrons. 

David (pictured above) discussed the history and technology of blue pigments in western art, from pre-Roman right through to the 21st century with a couple of chemical demonstrations to illustrate particular points.  He also described his work to develop a new blue modelled on the mineral structures which exist 500 kilometres deep beneath our feet. 

Scientist and artist

David's scientific career, working with colleagues at UCL and the Bayerisches Geoinstitut in Bayreuth Germany, involves very high- pressure experiments on deep Earth materials; the synthesis and properties of new iron-alloy phases relevant to the Earth’s core; transport properties of mantle mineral rocks and minerals; and deep seismicity.

In January 2017 David also became the first ‘Scientist in Residence’ at the Slade School of Art in London being based within the school for one year. The residency was a result of an ongoing Materials Research Project at the Slade, which highlights the role of materials within the creative and artistic process and The Pigment Timeline - a collaborative, cross-disciplinary research project that investigates and establishes connections across all departments at UCL that involve pigment and colour in any aspect of their research.

David's talk was particularly thought provoking and raised many questions from an audience on aspects of science and art. David is also an engraver and mountaineer and you can find images covering all his enthusiasms at: https://www.instagram.com/m3m_works/ 

CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology

Our 2017-18 programme continued on Thursday 22 March with a fascinating insight into the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology with Prof Bernard Hallet from the Universite Catholique de Louvain in his talk: 'Genome Editing by CRISPR-CAS9: Turning a Bacterial Trick into a Biotechnology Revolution”.

Prof Hallet (pictured below) described the biological and chemical basis of the CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technique and how the development of targeted genome editing systems, such as CRISPR, and their applications has moved forward enormously in the last decade.  In the last five years the field has undergone a quantum leap with the introduction of CRISPR-Cas9, the bacterial immune system which can be used to edit genomes on demand.

Bernard outlined how this serendipitous discovery that bacteria contained DNA sequences which were repeated, and interspersed with unique sequences, latterly identified as viral DNA, derived from viruses that had previously infected the bacteria.

It was then found that close to the CRISPR sequences, genes were located coding for CRISPR-associated proteins (Cas), which have nuclease activity. Together with small guide RNAs (crRNAs) which have been transcribed from the CRISPR locus, one or more Cas proteins form ribonucleoprotein targeting complexes, with each contain a single guide sequence. The Cas nuclease (usually Cas9) then cleaves the target DNA, marked for degradation by base-pairing with the crRNA.

In 2012, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna proposed that the CRISPR-Cas9 system could be used for programmable gene editing, an idea that has since been further developed by many research groups for potential applications ranging from creating smart model systems for fundamental protein research to enabling bio-engineers to modify crops and farm animals, and translational scientists to develop novel treatment approaches for inherited and acquired disorders for which curative treatment options are not currently available.

This fabulous CRISPR-Cas9 story provides the perfect example of how basic bacterial research has moved the whole scientific community towards the next biotechnological revolution and sparked an extended Q and A after the talk itself.

Charpentier at Louvain-la-Neuve
The title Doctors Honoris Causa will be awarded by the Universite Catholique de Louvain to Prof  Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin, Germany for her discovery of the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing system and to Prof Malcolm Bennett University of Nottingham, United Kingdom for his work on the root system of plants at a ceremony on 18 April.

The ceremony will take place at the UCL campus of Louvain-la-Neuve (Life Sciences Institute, ISV) on Wednesday April 18. For more information on this event and to register visit the UCL-ISV website.

Redox active Polymers: The Future for Batteries?

On 27 April 2017 RSC Belgium members and friends gathered at the British School of Brussels to hear Prof Jean-François Gohy from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) give a very informative talk on 'Redox active polymers: the future for batteries?' Jean-Francois' presentation focused on modern battery technologies and advances that may be possible through research in polymer science.

The presentation described the development of novel energy storage systems with enhanced performances using original, organic, electro-active, material chemistry and engineering approaches. Jean-Francois' primary target is to decipher the fundamental flaws in current technologies and build better organic batteries.

His long-term goal is to develop sustainable all-carbon-based batteries. The research aims to design and develop novel electro-active organic materials and architectures in order to develop faster, safer, and longer-lasting organic batteries, capacitors, and their hybrids.

Jean-François Gohy is Professeur Ordinaire at UCLouvain within the Institute for Condensed Matter and Nanosciences and Bio and Soft Matter. His research interests include the synthesis of polymers including: “living” and “controlled” polymerisation techniques; ionic polymers; liquid crystals; surfactants; supramolecular chemistry; self-associating polymers, stimuli-responsive materials, nanomaterials; adsorption of polymers on substrates; nano patterned surfaces; lithium-polymer batteries; and sustainable and green processes for battery materials.

Jean-François was awarded his Master degree in Chemistry from the University of Liège and continued his studies at Liege under Prof. Robert Jérôme obtaining his PhD in 1999. Then following postdoc positions with the Belgian FNRS (Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique) and at Eindhoven University of Technology he moved to the UCL in 2002.

He is first author or coauthor of more than 40 papers in international journals. He is member of the "Research Centre in Micro and Nanoscopic Materials and Electronic Devices" (CERMIN) and member of the Steering Committee of the European Science Foundation SUPERNET programme (Experimental and Theoretical Investigation of Complex Polymer Structures).

The Antibiotics Crisis

On the evening of 20 April 2016 RSC Belgium members and friends welcomed Dr. Laura Bowater from the University of East Anglia's Medical School to the Universite Catholique de Louvain (UCL) campus in Woluwe Saint Lambert. Dr Bowater talked about a very hot topic: the growing resistance of bacteria to today’s antibiotics.

Laura's lecture looked at the latest research in this area and how this impending crisis in modern medical treatment may be averted. Laura took us through a potted history of antibiotics from the serendipitous discovery of Penicillin by Alexander Fleming (pictured below) in 1928. In 1941 the microbiologist Selman Waksman used the term ‘antibiotic’ for the first time to describe small molecules that inhibit the growth of microbes and can be used clinically to treat a plethora of bacterial and fungal infections. Between the 1940s and the 1960s was the so-called 'Golden Age of Drug Discovery' with many new and effective drugs being developed.

However as early as December 1945 Fleming had sounded a note of warning in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech saying: “It is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the laboratory by exposing them to concentrations not sufficient to kill them […]. The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops. Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant."

He was right. Over the last eighty years bacterial pathogens have developed resistance to almost all of the known antibiotics. Laura explained how bacteria carry the information required for antibiotic resistance in their DNA and some bacterial species are resistant to certain antibiotics as a direct result of their genetic make-up, metabolism and cellular structure, while other bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics through either spontaneous mutation in their DNA or directly acquiring resistance from DNA that is transferred from a resistant bacterium. 

Education is key

The more we use antibiotics the more resistant bacteria are becoming. It is less than a hundred years since Fleming ‘discovered’ Penicillin and our reliance on antibiotics to treat life-threatening infections and prevent post surgery infections is at grave risk if we continue to use them inappropriately and with such casual abandon. Antibiotic use in modern agricultural practice and animal husbandry has increased dramatically and an increase in antimicrobial resistance has followed. Antibiotics are not effective against viruses yet antibiotics continue to be prescribed for viral infections and in some countries it is easy to purchase antibiotics without a prescription.

And, unfortunately the Golden Age of antibiotic discovery is long gone; most commonly found antibiotics have been discovered and the discovery of a novel antimicrobial with a clinical impact is now rare. Pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to invest in a drug that is at best prescribed for a short period of time, and at worst kept on a shelf as a ‘reserve antibiotic’ to be used only when all other treatments have been exhausted and ineffective.

Laura believes that effective education, communication, and engagement lie at the heart of any solution to the antibiotics crisis. Thankfully this approach appears to be working on a global basis and resources are being invested to examine the challenges and present potential solutions to the crisis and financial and regulatory incentives are available to initiate research for new antibiotics.

Dr Laura Bowater (picture above right with RSC Belgium Chairman Tim Reynolds) is a Senior Lecturer at the Norwich Medical School in the University of East Anglia and is a Microbiologist with a research interest in the growing problem of Antibiotic Resistance and the role of education in addressing this global concern. 

“Colour is Fun” brightens up Brussels

In the first week of March, RSC Belgium organised for Andrew Hanson from the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, U.K. to tour a number of schools and give a public presentation of his well-known lecture “Colour is Fun”. Andrew visited the European School Brussels II at Woluwe, St. John’s International School in Waterloo, the European School Brussels III at Ixelles, the British School of Brussels at Tervuren and the International School of Flanders (ISF) in Sint-Genesius-Rode, and gave an evening public presentation at the Université Catholique de Louvain’s Woluwe campus in Brussels on 2 March. At each location the lecture met with an enthusiastic reception from the audience, staff and pupils.

Andrew is Outreach Manager and Senior Research Scientist at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the UK's National Measurement Institute, and a world-leading centre of excellence in developing and applying the most accurate measurement standards available. For over 25 years he has been professionally measuring colour there, from evaluating the appearance of ornamental plants, to building the world’s first national standards telespectroradiometer to calibrate the colour of visual display units and a machine to measure the shininess of cats!

Colour measurement
His lecture tour brightened up a grey week at the end of winter for his audiences with its many colourful and animated slides. The lecture showed how colours are formed by splitting white light into the different wavelengths which we see as colour, how these are absorbed or reflected by the materials we see and the mechanism by which the eye transmits colour messages to the brain.

Equipment for colour measurement was described and how this enabled the definition of any particular colour, important for quality control in many different areas. Several demonstrations revealed how the eye can retain a reverse colour image when the image is removed – Andrew ‘magiced’ the Belgian flag from white, indigo and duck egg blue stripes. Drawing attention to how our perception of colour is determined by the surroundings of that colour, by the end of the lecture the audience was convinced that what had appeared to be four distinctly different colours at the start were in fact the same.

Whilst Andrew is a physicist, his lecture also highlighted the role of chemistry in determining the colour of materials, and in the development of new dyestuffs and colours.

Shiny cats! 
And, yes, there was an image of a shiny cat! And do not be surprised if the next lecture makes reference to the colour of the Belgian chocolate which Andrew took home with him…
In total, the Andrew’s lectures were enjoyed by over 600 students, staff and members of the public. ISF have reported the event on their Facebook page.

We have to thank the NPL for making Andrew’s time available to conduct this lecture tour, and the staff members at the schools who organised the event on the ground.

Constraining the Origin and Evolution of Life

On 2 October RSC Belgium was proud to present a fascinating talk on the Bioenergetic Constraints on the Origin and Evolution of Life from Dr Nick Lane of University College London. The event was also the prize giving ceremony for our 2014 Chemistry Challenge.

Nick Lane is an evolutionary biochemist and writer in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London (UCL). He was awarded the inaugural UCL Provost's Venture Research Prize for his research on evolutionary biochemistry and bioenergetics and his current work focuses on the origin of life, and the origin and evolution of eukaryotes. He was a founding member of the UCL Consortium for Mitochondrial Research, and leads the UCL Research Frontiers Origins of Life programme.

Common ancestor
All complex life on Earth is eukaryotic, and all eukaryotes (the cells found in plants and animals) share a common ancestor that was already a complex cell explained Nick. Despite their biochemical virtuosity, prokaryotes (cells found in bacteria) shown no tendency to evolve eukaryotic traits or large genomes over the huge timescale that they have existed.

Nick (above) argued that prokaryotes are constrained by their membrane bioenergetics, for fundamental reasons that stem from the very origin of life. Eukaryotes arose in a rare symbiosis between two prokaryotes, which broke the energetic constraints on prokaryotes and gave rise to mitochondria - often described as power plants for our cells. Loss of almost all mitochondrial genes produced an extreme genomic asymmetry in eukaryotes, in which tiny mitochondrial genomes support, energetically, a massive nuclear genome, giving eukaryotes 3 to 4 orders of magnitude more energy per gene than prokaryotes. The requirement for endosymbiosis radically altered selection on eukaryotes, potentially explaining the evolution of unique traits, including two sexes, germline, speciation and ageing.

As our audience appreciated Nick is an excellent communicator and the author of three critically acclaimed books on evolutionary biochemistry, the most recent of which, Life Ascending, won the 2010 Royal Society Prize for Science Books. His other two popular publications are ‘Power, Sex, Suicide’ and ‘Oxygen’. Our friends at Waterstones bookshop were present for the post talk drinks and networking with copies of Nick's books for sale. They also took some excellent photos!

Keith Price Prize
Before the lecture the highest scoring entries in our 2014 Chemistry Challenge were presented with their prizes. This year John Eade of BSB (pictured below right with section chairman Prof Bob Crichton) received the Keith Price Prize for best overall score in sections A and B (the two more chemically-orientated elements of our three-part challenge). For the three individual sections first prize winners received a €50 cash prize, second places got €25 and third places €10 with the winner of the Keith Price Prize receiving an additional €100.

Well done to everyone who took part! Every student that entered the competition received a certificate of participation. We will be running the Challenge again in 2015. And look out for our Top of the Bench International eliminator coming soon!