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.

Chemistry Challenge 2019 Results announced!

The results of the RSC Belgium Chemistry Challenge 2019 have been announced and the talented prize winners picked up their winnings at a special RSC Belgium event on the evening of 18 September just before our public Kitchen Chemistry demonstration lecture. The prizes were presented by Prof. Stephen Ashworth (aka The Kitchen Chemist) at the British School of Brussels (BSB).

Once again we received around 100 entries from international and European schools in Brussels and beyond for this testing challenge of young people's chemical knowledge and initiative. This year a particularly strong performance was noted for the winner of the Keith Price Prize for best overall performance in terms of chemical knowledge.

The RSC Belgium Chemical Challenge has three sections:

1. A chemistry multiple choice paper
2. A structured questions on chemistry, and
3. A 'Thinking Matters' paper that is not chemistry based

And the top results were as follows:

Section A: Multiple choice

First place was taken by Maxwell Michalec from St Johns International School (St. Johns), with second place going to Rutvi Shah of the British School of Brussels (BSB). Third place was a tie between Ewan Cook from BSB and Paul Spence-Rechard of the European School Brussels I at Uccle (EEB1). Some of the prize winners are pictured below with our special guest Prof. Stephen Ashworth and Section Chairman Prof Bob Crichton.

Section B: Structured Questions

In this section first prize was again won by Maxwell Michalec from St. Johns with Ewan Cook and Robbie Goodall both from BSB tied for second place. Thrid prize was also a tie between Aaryan Metha of BSB and Dillen Lee from the European School at Mol.

Section C: Thinking Matters

Here first place was awarded to Pippa Hartog who picked up her prize at a seperate ceremony when the Kitchen Chemist visited her school - Antwerp International School - on Friday 20 Spetember. Osobel Peppiette of Uccle European School took second place and the third-prize winner was Aura Sofia Ortega Claici from European School Brussels IV in Laeken.

Keith Price Prize

By winning both chemistry sections, Maxwell Michalec of St. Johns also recieved the prestigious Keith Price Prize for the best best overall score. A remarkable effort!

First prize winners in each section received €50, second €25 and third places €10 with the winner of the Keith Price Prize receiving an additional €100.

Well done to everyone who took part in this year's Chemistry Challenge! Every student that entered the competition receives a certificate of participation. We will be running the Challenge again in 2020 and look forward to widening participation! 

Summer BBQ boosts Norman's Fund

On the afternoon of Saturday 13 July 2019 RSC Belgium members and friends got together for a fundraising BBQ at our Section Chairman Bob Crichton's abode in Wavre with the aim to help boost our Norman Lloyd Scholarship fund. 

A good time was had by all with chef de cuisine Fabio in charge of the al fresco cooking and our hosts Bob and Bobbie providing a sumptuous multi-course spread.

Section secretary Tim Reynolds brought along some Timms Pimms and committee members contributed items for the raffle, which was drawn by Norman's wife Setsuko.
.

Prizes included vintage wines, beer, BBQ equipment and floral arrangements among many others.

All told EUR 795 was raised to support the continuation of our successful Norman Lloyd Scholarships at Cardiff University. The fund provides an annual scholarship of £1,000 for an undergraduate student, usually in their first year of study, at the Cardiff School of Chemistry.

So far, the fund has sponsored five students and has sufficient funds another award in the academic year 2019-2020.

Thanks to the generosity of the guests and contributors to the BBQ we are now well on the way to securing a seventh year for the Scholarships.

You can find out more about the Norman Lloyd Scholarship scheme on our dedicated blog page that also has links to brief profiles of the five recipients so far. If you would like to support the fund, please do not hesitate in contacting the section secretary.

BSB represent Belgium in TOTB Final in Birmingham

On Saturday 9 March, four students from the British School of Brussels (BSB) represented Belgium at the RSC's National Final of the Top of The Bench (TOTB) competition at Birmingham University. BSB were the winners of our hotly contested eliminator that took place in November.

The annual Final event, organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), is designed to enthuse and excite children with Chemistry and encourage them to consider further education and careers within Chemistry. The Top of the Bench competition is one of the longest-standing activities organised by the RSC for school students and has been running for more than 20 years.

Sabina (Year 11), YiIlin (Year 10), Mathieu (Year 9) and Xavier (Year 9) from BSB took part in a series of individual and group tasks alongside 31 other schools from across the United Kingdom.

After an individual written test in the morning, the students were assessed in the afternoon during a group problem-solving exercise. This practical task took place in the brand new, state-of-the-art Chemistry laboratory of the University of Birmingham where the students were able to access fantastic facilities only normally found in industrial chemical laboratories. The day ended with a fun and informative lecture on polymers and biopolymers. The students had a look around the campus and enjoyed working in state of the art facilities in Birmingham and thoroughly enjoyed this day in a world class institution.

Shape and Form in Biology

On the evening of Thursday 14 March 2019, new section chairman Prof Bob Crichton gave the  opening talk of our 2019 programme with a description of the progress made in elucidating 'Shape and Form in Biology' at the British School of Brussels (BSB).

The shape and form of biological objects has long intrigued scientists, particularly in how they determine biological function. The world of structural biology has been dramatically changed in the last few years with the advent of new developments in electron microscopy and crystallography of biological macromolecules.

Bob's lecture outlined recent advances in two areas - cryo-electron microscopy (the 2017 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson "for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution”) and the use of X-ray free electron lasers (the EUR 1.25 billion XFEL at the Deutsche Electronische Synchotron in Hamburg has just come on beam), supplementing existing synchrotron facilities for protein structure determination. This enables structure determination from nanocrystals, thereby overcoming some of the biggest hurdles of traditional crystallography (radiation damage) through the principle of diffraction-before-destruction, as well as simultaneously opening a new era of time-resolved (femtosecond) structural studies.

The section is organising a trip to the XFEL facility and the neighbouring DESY synchrotron in Hamburg on 28 June. Find out more here.

Prof Robert (Bob) Crichton has had a long and distinguished career in biochemical research. He graduated in Biochemistry from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, in the mid-sixties and after carrying out postdoctoral research at the Max Plank Institut für Biochimie in Munich, Germany, he moved to the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium in 1973, where he has been a professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Chemistry. His main research interests are in the inorganic biochemistry of iron and related metals and he is author of the book on iron metabolism -  'Iron Metabolism: From Molecular Mechanisms to Clinical Consequences.'

Of course, Bob has also been a mainstay of the RSC Belgium section for many years, giving one of its first ever talks and he has just started his third stint as Chairman of the section.

Process waste water oxidation

On the evening of Tuesday 9 April, our second talk of 2019 took place at St. Johns International School with Raf Dewil who is Professor at the Process and Environmental Technology Lab (PETLab) at KU Leuven. PETLab is a research group within the Chemical Engineering Department at KU Leuven based at the Campus de Nayer site north of Mechelen. The title of Raf's talk was 'Advanced oxidation processes: from the lab to a Chemical Plant-on-a-Truck' and dealt with the various methods to treat on-site hazardous water generated by various industrial and chemical processes.

Over the past ten years, the PETLab group has established a broad expertise in resource recovery and the production of renewable chemicals and energy carriers from waste, side and biomass streams and it specialises in waste- and wastewater treatment processes, mixed-culture microbial processes, chemicals from low-cost feedstocks, and model-based optimisation of processes.

Within their facilities at the KU Leuven Campus de Nayer, PETLab combines a broad range of analytical equipment with extensive lab- and pilot-equipment. With numerous industrial collaborations, PETLab aims at combining fundamental knowledge with a hands-on philosophy to tackle real-life problems that industry is confronted with. 

Raf's talk focused on a range of oxidation methods for the degradation of organics from hazardous wastewater streams and how laboratory work is scaled up to full sized units including an innovative modular system that combines chemical and biological oxidation treatments.

Raf's talk ended with a video outlining the 'Plant on a Truck’ concept operating at Janssen Pharmaceutica’s chemical production site in Geel. that treats process waters from the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients in a cost-effective and sustainable way.

Prof Dewil is also Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Environmental Management and his main research interests span advanced biological and chemical wastewater treatment, advanced Oxidation Processes (AOP), sludge treatment and disposal, anaerobic digestion processes, and production of renewable chemicals from biomass and waste.

RSC Belgium 2019 AGM Report

The section's Annual General Meeting (AGM) took place on Friday 15 February 2019 at Les Amis Dinent Restaurant in Wezembeek-Oppem at 19h30 and was followed by the section's Annual Dinner from 20h00. The meeting opened at 19:30 with ten members present but a further nine members, who were unable to attend the AGM in person, had asked the Chairman to act as their proxy for the meeting if a vote was required thus achieving our quorum.

Following the recording of apologies received, the minutes of our previous AGM of 2 February 2018 were approved with no corrections. The section secretary, William Darnley, then presented the Committee Report on the Section's 2018 Activities. 2018 had been another good year for the section, with 10 events, of which six were public lectures, two social trips and our two annual school outreach events. The committee once again attended inter-section curling in Kent, where victory had been claimed! Membership stands at 131, a minor increase over last year.

The year kicked off with an evening with Prof. Sir Martyn Poliakoff – our highest attended event of the year with in excess of 50 people! And ended with another favourite: Dr. Urbina-Blanco’s talk on using CO2 as a chemical building block. In between these fabulous events were scattered throughout the year other, equally fantastic events, with a social outing to the highly interesting “Trainworld” train museum in Schaerbeek. We also took a trip to the Duvel brewery to the keen interest of many members. Other highlights included lectures on the duality of Music and Chemistry in April and a lecture on the history, importance and of course the chemistry of the colour blue.

We have our 5th Norman Lloyd scholar this year, William Cawdell. Reports from Cardiff are that he is a fantastic student and he intends to become a teacher!

Top of the Bench was yet another cracking event, with 11 teams from six schools and three countries partaking! It was an incredibly close call on the winners, but after reassessing all the teams’ performance in the practical exercise it was decided BSB was this year’s winners! They will be competing in the final in Birmingham in March.

Section finances

The section treasurer, Julie Tupenny, presented the 2018 financial report and accounts. On 1 January 2018, the net assets of RSC Belgium Section had been €8 552. The Annual Grant for 2018 received in June 2018 from RSC UK was €5 000, somewhat less than the requested €7 000. However, with no Café Chimique this year the financial situation is good.

For the Year ending 31 December 2018, the net assets of RSC Belgium Section amount to €10 311. This included part payment of a RSC Outreach Grant for the proposed Kitchen Chemistry tour (see below).

Bearing in mind that under Belgian Law, the status of the RSC Belgium Section holds the three Officers personally liable for debts arising from the activities of the Belgium Section. A grant of €7 000 will be requested from RSC UK to cover all the activities planned for 2019.

On behalf of The Belgium Section, Julie thanked Ralph Palim F.C.A the Hon. Auditor for his thoroughness in auditing and approving the RSC Belgium Section for the year ending 31 December 2018. Ralph has agreed to continue as the section's auditor for 2019.

Chairman’s Remarks

The Chairman, Tim Reynolds, thanked the committee for their hard work and support during the year and during his four years as Chair of the section. As ever we had hosted an interesting and diverse programme including some firsts. He thanked William Darnley for taking on the burden of section secretary.

Looking forward to 2019 he anticipated a challenging year with the fallout from Brexit making all our lives a little more difficult, however he was pleased to announce that the RSC would be launching a free legal service via its Community Fund to all RSC members in the EU who required support over issues such as immigration, residence or nationality as a result of Brexit. The service would cover any member, their partner or dependents and was good news.

The RSC Belgium programme for 2019 was also looking good and pretty much complete. Highlights included a possible trip to Hamburg in June to visit DESY and the new XFEL facility that is set to revolutionise our understanding in the biological sciences; the Kitchen Chemistry schools tour in September that is largely funded by the first RSC Outreach Grant to be awarded to any section outside the UK and Republic of Ireland (another first for RSC Belgium!); and the Istvan Marko Memorial Symposium at Louvain-La-Neuve that the section will be supporting and is attracting some notable speakers.

In anticipation of the elections, the Chair wished Bob Crichton well as the incoming Section Chair and welcomed Matt Andrews to the committee.

Committee elections

Three ordinary members were elected to the committee (Rita Woodward, Matt Andrews, and William Darnley) and the three Section officers were elected with Bob Crichton becoming Chair, Julie Tupenny remaining as Treasurer, and Tim Reynolds moving to the role of Section Secretary.

Election to the committee is for a two-year term and David Terrell and Jane Downing are currently in mid-term on the committee. The full composition of the RSC Belgium section committee can be found here. The first meeting of the 2019 committee took place on 5 March 2019.

All business being completed the meeting adjourned at 19:59 and the Annual Dinner commenced. You can access the full draft Minutes of the 2019 AGM here. These minutes will be presented to the AGM of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Belgium Section in 2020 for approval.