ACD/Labs Scientific Scholar of the Year Award - 1999

We are happy to announce the results of our first ACD/Labs Scholar of the Year Award . The work presented was of the highest scientific standard and we are happy to reproduce the award winners work at this website. The three winners, in order, were Györgyi Kovács, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Szeged, Hungary, Valentine P. Ananikov, ND Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, and Oleh Tanchak, the Department of Applied Chemical and Biological Sciences, Ryerson Polytechnic University. Honorable mention is also given to Jiansuo Wang, Institute of Physical Chemistry & College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University whose work we found extremely interesting. We thank everybody for their participation. You are all winners! ACD/Scholar of the Year Award 2000 is announced here.

Awards for 1999:

The first prize winner won $500 for personal use, a copy of ACD/ChemFolder, an ACD/Labs T-shirt, and a site licence of ChemSketch for the associated academic facility. The winner will also be identified as the 1999 Advanced Chemistry Development Scholar of the Year, a valuable addition to any resume.

The second prize winner won $250 for personal use, a copy of ACD/ChemFolder and an ACD/Labs T-shirt.

The third prize winner won $100 for personal use, a copy of ACD/ChemSketch (including Dictionary) and an ACD/Labs T-shirt.

All notable entries and winners are posted below.

The results of our first
ACD/Labs Scholar of the Year Award

Winner - Györgyi Kovács, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Szeged, Hungary:
Report on the Use of Fmoc/Acyl Protecting Groups in the Synthesis of Polyamide (Peptide) Nucleic Acid Monomers

The application of Polyamide nucleic acids (PNA) to antisense diagnosis and therapeutics is an excellent foundation for an investigation of this type. The synthesis of modified PNA-DNA and PNA-peptide conjugates may be of critical importance to continue studies in this area and this work is very timely. The results section is written with the detail expected from any organic professor writing for one of the high profile journals. The descriptions are definitive and concise and the use of software tools to display the reaction schemes was done in a visually stimulating manner. This report in its present form would be well received as a Letter by any respectable Organic journal. Congratulations to Györgyi - the FIRST ACD/Labs Scholar of the Year!

Second Place - Valentine P. Ananikov, ND Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences :
CC Triple Bond Activation by Platinum and Palladium Complexes: New Catalytic Approach and Extended Mechanistic Study

This study in Carbon-Carbon triple bond activation is an important application since these conditions offer stereo- and regioselective routes to unsaturated systems. The new approach outlined here is based on the platinum group metals catalysts in high oxidation states (Pt⁴⁺ and Pd⁴⁺)as the metal center exhibits strong electrophilic properties, therefore providing unique opportunity to increase catalytic activity regarding electron-rich triple bond. I applaud the author for the quality of the mechanistic figures as well as the application of numerous NMR techniques, including multinuclear NMR, to both identify and quantify the nature of the products. I especially look forward to the publication of the new pulse sequences innovated during this work. The author has clearly demonstrated his capability to work with software tools available today including both structure drawing, spectral processing and prediction tools. Valentine can clearly communicate his ideas and scientific process and is encouraged to present this work in a more formal venue when possible.

Third Place - Oleh Tanchak, the Department of Applied Chemical and Biological Sciences, Ryerson Polytechnic University:
Chromium (0) and Molybdenum (0) Tricarbonyl Complexes of 1,3,5-Triazacyclohexane

As communicated, inorganic supramolecular coordination chemistry is a new area of chemistry and the syntheses of cubic multinuclear complexes are of interest to those in this field. The intention to communicate the synthesis of the fac-[Cr₈(CO)₂₄(bipy)₁₂ ] cubic complex is clearly communicated utilizing structural representation and textual descriptions of the synthesis. The description is concise and as a result is lacking in actual weights and the yield resulting from the synthesis.

Honorable Mention - Jiansuo Wang, Institute of Physical Chemistry & College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University:
Database mining of toxic chemicals and predictive toxicology

This report details an approach taken towards database mining of toxic chemicals and predictive toxicology. A two-step strategy is proposed to explore the database: the screening of structure patterns by similarity comparison and the derivation of detailed relationships between structure and activity. The analysis suggests that there are indeed structure component patterns for toxic chemicals, not in itself a surprising conclusion. The analysis shows that combining both discrimination of toxic chemicals and QSAR analysis of structure patterns, is a partial solution to the problem of dealing with predictive toxicology in terms of database mining. The ongoing issue of prediction of toxicity responses continues to addresse by a number of groups and this paper certainly identifies one approach and addresses the issues existing in regards to data quality and quantity within a large DB. It is interesting to note the stepwise reduction of the DB dimension to narrow the analysis.

Antony Williams, Ph.D,
Advanced Chemistry Development