On 1–4 July 2014, CSCT student Sarah Kirk presented her research in Dublin at the 13th International Symposium for Advancing the Chemical Sciences (ISACS), a conference series run by the RSC. This is her report. Sarah is in her third year of the DTC, and her research involves polymers and copolymers for tissue engineering applications, supervised by Dr Matthew Jones and Dr Marianne Ellis.
In July I travelled to Dublin for ISACS13. The theme for this conference was ‘Challenges in Inorganic and Materials Chemistry’. Over three days I heard talks from distinguished international speakers, covering a whole manner of topics from ligation of radiometals to crystal engineering.
In the opening talk, Susumu Kitagawa informed us that metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) can be used as interpenetrated cages that can ‘open’ or ‘close’ to allow gas absorption. Another fascinating MOF talk by Mircea Dinca introduced their conductive properties and applications. A series of talks of the application of inorganic and materials chemistry to biomedical purposes included Stephen Mann, who showed us how he could chemically mimic a cell growing and dividing using capsules in oil.
At this conference I presented a poster on ‘Novel Schiff-base Aluminium Complexes for the Production of Polylactide’. This poster session was certainly busy! When not talking about my research, I had to opportunity to discuss a variety of topics with other researchers, including other chemists working with polylactide.
I had the pleasure of staying at the Dublin Trinity College which is a beautiful campus, spacious and green yet located right in the middle of the city. And naturally, I took some time to visit the Guinness and Jameson factories, although my ability to consume the produce was spoiled by illness!
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