The International Symposium on Advances in Synthetic and Medicinal Chemistry (ASMC07) was held in the magnificent Russian city of St. Petersburg in which the enchanting Russian heritage combined with a distinctly European outlook fascinated the participants during August 27-31, 2007. The ASMC07 in St. Petersburg was jointly organized by EFMC and ChemBridge Corporation with the support of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry.
The first symposium of this meeting series, the International Symposium on Advances in Synthetic, Combinatorial and Medicinal Chemistry (ASCMC04) chaired by Prof. K.C. Nicolaou, in Moscow was acknowledged as the world’s chemistry meeting in the year 2004. This second meeting of this symposium series, ASMC-St. Petersburg 07 was chaired by Prof. Steven Ley and Dr. Magid Abou-Gharbia and promised to follow the tradition to be the world's chemistry science high points of the year 2007 with the aim of bringing together leading scientists and expert practitioners of synthetic and medicinal chemistry from academic, government and industrial institutions to discuss emerging trends in synthetic chemistry and medicinal chemistry, novel approaches in drug design, and recent advances in drug discovery and development. The ASMC-St. Petersburg 07 with its distinguished panel of 45 internationally renowned speakers from academia and the pharmaceutical industry, 215 peer reviewed poster presentations and about 600 delegates from 42 countries completed this task successfully, and resulted as a great success in advancing science of medicinal and organic chemistry while promoting cooperation between scientists from all over the world.
The general topics covered during this symposium included:
- New Synthetic Methodologies, Total Synthesis of Natural Products and Heterocyclic Chemistry
- Diversity- and Target-Oriented Synthesis and Chemical Biology
- Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery & Development
On the opening day chaired by Prof. Pellicciari, two important plenary lectures given by Prof. Ley (University of Cambridge, Cambridge) and Dr. Abou-Gharbia (WYETH Research, Princeton) highlighted the core structure of the meeting by pointing out the changing face of organic synthesis for making biologically important molecules more efficiently and by making important remarks to discover small molecule therapeutics from natural products resources. These talks were followed by very interesting lectures given by leading scientists of USA, Russia and Europe with an excellent attendance bringing together the synthetic organic and medicinal chemistry.
At the end four days of very exciting science and great discussions in enriching cultural environment of St. Petersburg made the ASMC-07 as an alive, rewarding and memorable scientific symposium which set the stage at a high level challenging the organizers of the next symposium in the series.
EFMC and ChemBridge agreed to continue this unique and promising series and the next meeting will be held in 2009, most probably in Kiew.
by Erden Banoglu, Gazi University
