Vol. 27 No. 1
January-February 2005

Heteroatom Chemistry

by Irina Beletskaya

The 7th International Conference on Heteroatom Chemistry (ICHAC-7) was held 21–25 August 2004 in Shanghai, China. The conference was organized by the Chinese Chemical Society, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, State Key Laboratories of Organometallic Chemistry and Elemento-Organic Chemistry, and Shanghai Society of Chemistry and Chemical Industry. The conference chairman was Lixin Dai and the co-chairman was Yong Tang.

Approximately 250 participants from many countries took part in the conference, including a large number of students predominantly from the Asian region. The program consisted of 8 plenary lectures, 1 keynote lecture, 38 invited lectures, 56 oral presentations, and nearly 120 posters.

(From left to right) Group of the previous chairmen of ICHAC meetings: Prof. Ohno (1st, 1987, Kobe, Japan), Prof. Block (2nd, 1989, Albany, NY, USA), Prof. Kim (3rd, 1992, Riccione, Italy), Prof. Baines (5th, 1998, London, Canada), Prof. Mikolajczyk (6th, 2001, Lodz, Poland) and Prof. Dai (7th, 2004, Shanghai, China). (Courtesy of Li Xin Dai and Yong Tong, organizers of ICHAC-7)

The subject of this conference was in some ways unique, since the concept of heteroatom includes almost all the elements of the periodic table. Hence, the conference featured an exceptional diversity of topics in which the problems of organic and inorganic chemistry, life science, and material science were reflected and intertwined. The following major themes were included in the conference: Organocatalysis, Heteroatom Chemistry Directed Towards Organic Synthesis, Mechanistic and Structural Aspects of Heteroatom Chemistry, New Heteroatom-Containing Materials, Biologically Relevant Heteroatom Chemistry, and Supramolecular Chemistry of Heteroatom.

Participants pointed out that the conference enlarged their scientific horizons and introduced them to new and important things that were far from their own fields of study. It was particularly gratifying that the plenary lectures were exciting enough that they evoked interest among participants in issues not directly connected with their fields of study.

Many new findings were disclosed in the invited lectures and oral presentations. The enormous poster session featured many enthusiastic and highly trained young people, especially form the host country.

It is impossible to mention all the important contributions, but most of them will be published in Pure and Applied Chemistry. Following are a few highlighted lectures, which are representative of the quality of material presented at the conference:

• “Phosphoryl Transfer Enzymes and Hypervalent Phosphorus Chemistry,” Robert R. Holmes, University of Massachusetts
• “Strongest but Gentlest: New Acids for Organic and Inorganic Chemistry,” Christopher A. Reed, University of California at Riverside
• “Synthetic Methodologies Using Tertiary Phosphines as Nucleophilic Catalysts,” Xiyan Lu, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, CAS
• “Functional Oligothiophenes as Advanced Molecular Electronics Materials,” Tetsuo Otsubo, Hiroshima University
• “Recent Advances of Molecular Material in the Organic Solid Laboratory, CAS,” Dao-Ben Zhu, Institute of Chemistry, CAS
• “Catalytic Routes to Rings, Chains, and Macromolecules based on Inorganic Elements,” Ian Manners, University of Toronto
• “Recent Develpments in the Chemistry of Low-Coordinated Organophosphorus Compounds,” Masaaki Yoshifuji, Tohuku University
• “Cyclopentadienyl and Ferrocenyl Chemistry of Some p-Block Elements,” Peter Jutzi, University of Bielefeld
• “Design of Heterocyclic Ligands for Asymmetric Catalysis,” Andreas Pfaltz, University of Basel

The conference was well organized and allowed the participants to acquaint themselves not only with the recent progress in the field of heterocyclic chemistry, but also with the advances of science in China, as well as with amazingly beautiful and rapidly upcoming city of Shanghai.

The 8th IUPAC International Conference on Heteroatom Chemistry will be held in Riverside, CA, hosted by Prof. Christopher A. Reed of University of California at Riverside in 2007.

Irina Beletskaya <[email protected]> is professor at Moscow State University; she was IUPAC representative at the ICHAC-7, and former president (1989-91) of the IUPAC Organic Division.