University of Auckland
New Staff
We welcome two new academic staff to the School of Chemical Sciences - Dr Rosalyn Falconer and Dr Joel Rindelaub. Joel joined the School in February this year, while Rosalyn will be joining the School during Semester 2.
Events
8th Asia-Oceania Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry
The University of Auckland hosted the 8th Asia-Oceania Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry from 29 November – 1 December 2023, hosted by the Centre for Green Chemical Science and co-chaired by Dr Cameron Weber and Professor Jonathan Sperry. This is the first time this conference series has been hosted in New Zealand and only the second time it has been held in Oceania.
This event saw over 150 delegates descend upon Auckland to discuss a wide range of topics of relevance to Green and Sustainable Chemistry, from green chemical synthesis and catalysis, the utilisation of biomass and CO2 as chemical feedstocks through emerging energy technologies and green chemistry education. We were particularly pleased to be joined by one of the founders of the field of green chemistry, John Warner, who gave the inspirational opening plenary. The conference concluded with the conference dinner at the Maritime Room and the passing over of the conference series to Professor Eniya Listiani Dewi who will chair the next version of the conference in 2025 in Jakarta, Indonesia.
MacDiarmid Institute NanoCamp
The MacDiarmid Institute NanoCamp was organised by Dr Elke Pahl (physics) and Associate Professor Viji Sarojini and attended by 10 students aged between 16 and 18. The camp programme involved sessions on nanoparticles, solar cells, a visit to the Photon Factory and a day trip to Tiritiri Matangi Island, as well as a number of social activities and a panel discussion with current PhD students talking about their own journeys in science and academia. The camp also included contributions from Belinda Turner, Communications Officer for the South Australian Node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF-SA), who gave a talk about their facilities and their popular Microengineering School program.
Staff Successes
Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers
Congratulations to Professor Brent Copp, Professor Geoffrey Waterhouse and Dr Fan Zhu for having been named in the prestigious Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers List for 2023. Each researcher selected has authored multiple highly-cited papers ranking in the top 1% by citations worldwide for their fields.
MacDiarmid Medal
Congratulations to Professor Geoff Waterhouse for being awarded the Royal Society Te Apārangi MacDiarmid Medal, in the Wellington awards ceremony, for discovering low-cost nano-catalysts critical to global decarbonisation efforts and the establishment of robust energy infrastructures based around renewables. The MacDiarmid Medal is awarded for outstanding scientific research that demonstrates the potential for application to human benefit.
Medicines New Zealand Award
Congratulations to Distinguished Professor Margaret Brimble for receiving the Medicines New Zealand Award for Excellence in Innovative Medicines Research.
Publications
Congratulations to Ziyun Wang for his new publication in the leading science journal Nature. The paper features his cutting-edge research into converting waste carbon dioxide into a potential precursor for chemicals and carbon-free fuel. For further information, please check out Greenhouse gas transformed in aid of carbon-free future – The University of Auckland.
Many global media also covered the paper:
The Gulf Observer - “Chinese and New Zealand Researchers Achieve Sustainable Carbon Dioxide Conversion”: https://thegulfobserver.com/chinese-and-new-zealand-researchers-achieve-sustainable-carbon-dioxide-conversion/
Xinhua News - “Scientists develop membrane that converts carbon dioxide to useful chemical” http://www.china.org.cn/china/Off_the_Wire/2024-02/01/content_116980195.htm
Congratulations to CJ Aguilar for his first author paper from his PhD research that was selected for the front cover page in Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry (http://xlink.rsc.org/?DOI=D3OB01469J). CJ is supervised by Iman Kavianinia and Margaret Brimble and his PhD research is funded by the NZ Leather and Shoe Research Association (LASRA).
Outreach Activities
Podcasts
Congratulations to Neill Culley for having been interviewed by Tim Higham on Aotea FM for a podcast called ‘Island Stories’. The recording entitled ‘Kiwi wine legend’ can be found on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Sn8f6PKkD9c4bk8sXkxN7?si=0405bc252c804040
Student Successes
MacDiarmid Institute Annual Symposium
Congratulations to William Sheard and Emma Matthewman who received poster prizes at the MacDiarmid Annual Symposium.
8th Asia-Oceania Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry
Congratulations to Mason Grant who received a Highly Commended poster prize at AOC-GSC8.
AUT News
New Faces
Fathima Nimra Abdul Haleem (Nimra) began her PhD studies with Professor Nicola Brasch in July. Nimra has been awarded a Dodd-Walls Centre PhD scholarship.
Josh Van Dongen joins as a research assistant working with Dr Jack Chen. Josh is working on the Spherelose project, developing sustainable cellulose-based surfactants.
Congratulations
Ben Stackpole, Jessica Fredericksen and Professor Nicola Brasch published a paper entitled “Exploring the potential of the vitamin B12 derivative azidocobalamin to undergo Huisgen 1,3-dipolar azide-alkyne cycloaddition reactions” in the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, published by Elsevier (DOI: 10.1016/j.jinorgbio.2024.112504).
PhD students Anau Lautaha and Jessica Fredericksen along with Professor Nicola Brasch attended the Dodd-Walls Centre Symposium in Rotorua in June. Jess won a prize for her poster presentation.
PhD student Jessica Fredericksen, supervised by Professor Nicola Brasch and Dr Brent Seale, won a best oral presentation award at the School of Science Research Showcase in October.
Ben Stackpole received the 2023 School of Science award for the most outstanding BSc (Hons) graduate and an award for the most outstanding postgraduate student in chemistry (sponsored by Hill Labs). Ben received an A grade for his BSc (Hons) research project with Professor Nicola Brasch and Dr Brent Seale and was awarded a first-class honours degree.
Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre
Grant successes
Dr Moana Tercel has secured an Auckland Medical Research Foundation (AMRF) grant for the project, “A suite of masked camptothecin analogues for application in anticancer antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs)”. The $176,000 project runs for 2 years starting 1 March 2024. Both Moana and Frederik Pruijn are Principal Investigators. ADCs are a new and rapidly growing type of cancer treatment. ADCs use the selectivity of an antibody to deliver a drug directly to cancer cells, with the goal of avoiding the normal tissue toxicity which is often caused by chemotherapy. In this project new versions of a type of drug that has been the focus of some recent ADCs developed for treating breast cancer will be prepared. These new versions of the drugs have the right chemical properties to address current limitations and so make even better and more effective ADCs.
New students
We welcomed the following students in chemistry to the ACSRC:
PhD: Yuge Liu, supervised by Peter Choi and Jiney Jose (ACSRC), Thomas Park (Centre for Brain Research) and Muhammad Hanif (School of Chemical Sciences). Yuge’s project focuses on synthesising and testing various heptamethine cyanine dyes (HMCD) drug-dye conjugates in both commercial and patient-derived glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) cell lines. Ultimately, she aims to evaluate these conjugates in patient-derived xenograft models of GBM in mice.
Intern: Ilona Ryckewaert, supervised by Hamish Sutherland. Ilona is a second year Masters student in drug and health products sciences in France. Her project is about the design and synthesis of novel inhibitors of Mycobacterium tuberculosis protein kinase B (PknB).
