The CSCB Symposium- ‘Recent Advances in Synthesis and Chemical Biology XVII’ took place on Friday 7th of December in RSCI. Brilliant talks were delivered by Professor Jonathan Nitschke (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom), Professor Chris Braddock (Imperial College London, United Kingdom), Professor Kevin Booker-Milburn (University of Bristol, United Kingdom), Professor Ed Tate (Imperial College London, United Kingdom) and Professor Helma Wennemers (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) . Well done to all the group members who presented posters, and congratulations to the attending PhD students who won poster prizes. Thanks to all involved in the organisation of the day.

We are currently accepting applications for a Government of Ireland postdoctoral fellowship within our group. The IRC application deadline is November 29th 2018. Applicants should email Professor Guiry (partick.guiry@ucd.ie) directly with a cover letter and an up-to-date CV in .doc or .pdf format only.

We would like to wish a belated Happy Halloween to all. Our group attended the UCD ChemSoc Halloween Ball in a Monopoly-themed group costume, and won “Best Group Costume”!

Congratulations to Dr. Jinju James for flawlessly passing her PhD viva! Her thesis is titled “Investigations into the Catalytic Asymmetric Synthesis of Sterically Hindered Lactones and Dihydrocoumarins” and is spread across a record two volumes! We are delighted to have her around for just a little while longer.

Dr. Andrew Harper worked in our group as a postdoc for the last year, and recently left to pursue another postdoc at the University of Auckland. We wish Andrew the best of luck with his career going forwards!

A number of UCD Chemistry students attended the Oxford Synthesis Summer Conference this June, including six members of our group: Alex, Annette, Brendan, Eric, Jinju, and Laura. The plenary speakers across both days were excellent, and the student flash talks were highly engaging. The discussion panel with the plenary speakers on the second day offered useful insights and perspective to postgraduate students.