St. Patrick's Day celebrations
Thursday 23rd March

Dr Nick Gathergood, Ambassador Peter Gunning and Prof. Frank Hegarty at the Irish Embassy in Madrid for St. Patrick's Day celebrations.

Dr Nick Gathergood, School of Chemical Sciences and NICB, meets Peter Gunning, the Irish Ambassador in Madrid with Prof. Frank Hegarty UCD, Deputy Director of IRCSET at the ambassador's residence in central Madrid.

The ambassador Peter Gunning was keen to meet Dr Nick Gathergood DCU, Dr Paul Murphy UCD and Prof. Frank Hegarty UCD, Deputy Director of IRCSET, to discuss Ireland as the ‘island of saints, scholars and science.'

Dr Gathergood and Dr Murphy were in Madrid representing Ireland at the recent ERA-Chemistry workshop. They presented their latest results under the topic ‘Stereocontrolled chemistry related to the solution of major biological problems'. Chiral macrocycles, novel ionophoric antibiotics and robust short synthetic methods to prepare a library of chiral bioactive compounds were highlights of Dr Gathergood's presentation.

One of the aims of the meeting was to identify innovative fields and “hot topics” which could be priorities for the 5-10 coming years and supported by European transnational programmes.

The interface between chemistry and biology was discussed and the major role chemistry plays in molecular biology. A second strong theme was how chemists can be inspired to develop new methods and tools by considering and studying complex biological molecules and processes. The workshop presented a wide range of fruitful collaborations between synthetic chemists and chemical biologists.

12 European countries are represented in the ERA-Chemistry network: Germany, Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Finland, Portugal, Spain, Belgium and France. The results from the workshops group discussions will be published shortly.