ACD/Labs Scientific Scholar of the Year Award - Graduate Stream - 2000

We are pleased to announce the results of the ACD/Labs Scholar of the Year 2000 Award, Graduate Stream. The work presented was of the highest scientific standard and we are honored to reproduce the award winners' work through this web page. The three winners, in order, were (1) Sébastien Reymond of the CNRS in France; (2) Sigitas Stoncius of Vilnius University in Lithuania; and (3) Keith Gawrys of North Carolina State University in North Carolina, USA. Honorable mention is also given to (4) Filip Toukach of the Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences whose work we found extremely interesting. We thank everybody for their participation. You are all winners! Rules for the next ACD/Scholar of the Year Award 2001 will be announced soon.

The Judges' Decisions

We received many entries this year. Overall, the judges were impressed with the high level of entries and found it very difficult to rank them. On the whole, students were investigating highly topical research questions, and submitted well-organized, highly informative reports about their work. Thank you to all entrants and their supervisors!

First place - Sébastien Reymond, Laboratoire de Synthèse Asymétrique, Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Synthèses, de Procédés et d'Ingénierie Chimiques d'Aix Marseille, UMR CNRS in Marseille, France:
Asymmetric Ring opening of meso Epoxides by Chloride Ion Silicon Sources Catalyzed by New Chiral Ortho-Methoxyphenyldiazaphosphonamide Lewis Bases

Our panel of judges enjoyed this investigation into the different compounds and conditions to improve enantioselectivity in the ring opening of epoxides. It was clearly presented, both in text and diagrams. The results were concisely described and interpreted. The development of new, efficient chiral Lewis bases is an important research area and is essential in the demand for enantiotopically pure compounds. Non-linear effect studies were used to verify the mechanistic details of the proposed catalytic cycle. We wish the author success in his continued doctoral fellowship at CNRS!

Second place - Sigitas Stoncius, Department of Organic Chemistry, Vilnius University, of Vilnius, Lithuania:
Stereoselective synthesis and chiroptical properties of some bridged bicyclic and tricyclic structures

Much detail was packed into this report on the synthesis, HPLC separation and characterization of several compounds related to natural products. An extremely thorough analysis of the synthetic products with a well-rationalized assignment of stereo centers included quadrant diagrams to explain the circular dichroism (CD) of the species. The author took great care in presenting this work, with color-coded graphs and attention to layout. We applaud your efforts! This work was performed during masters' studies at Vilnius University.

Third place - Keith Gawrys, Department of Chemical Engineering North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA:
Synthesis and characterization of substituted triphenylenes to mimic the solubility behavior and interfacial activity of asphaltenes

Who would have guessed asphaltene compounds could be this interesting? The structures of these large, polar, planar multi-fused polyaromatic compounds were visually well-presented through 2D and 3D images. The synthesis and characterization of the model compounds were successful. It gave the judges a whole new appreciation for the chemistry of tar and we thank this entrant for his report!

Honorable mention: Filip Toukach, NMR Center, N. D. Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences:
Computer-assisted structural analysis of regular biopolymers on the basis of 13C NMR data

An honorable mention goes to Filip Toukach for a report on computer-assisted determination of a polysaccharide sequence based on 13C NMR data and information about anomeric substitution and absolute configurations. Biopolymer structure elucidation is a difficult area and the author's approach demonstrated great potential. Besides the interesting science, this report was a tour de force of ChemSketch capabilities, with colored flow charts, a customized logo and challenging table layout. Well done!

Judges Panel