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CERC3 YOUNG
CHEMISTS' WORKSHOPS
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BIOCATALYSIS
2004
March 24 – March 27
in Erlangen, Germany
Institut
für Organische Chemie der Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Henkestraße
42, D-91054 Erlangen
Local Organizing
Committee
Dr. Norbert Jux
PD Dr. Markus Reiher
Prof. Dr. Rudi van
Eldik
CERC3 Young Chemists'
Workshop "Biocatalysis"
March 24 - March 27,
2004
Institut für Organische
Chemie, Henkestr. 42, 91054 Erlangen, Germany
Introductory
Overview
Background
CERC3 is the acronym used for the Chairmen of European Research
Councils’ Chemistry Committees (CERCCC or CERC3). CERC3 is a committee composed
of senior research chemists who are actively involved in the decision making
process of allocating national funds in the support of research in basic chemistry,
and who represent their national research council. They have intimate knowledge
of their national research council funding policies and have peer review
experience. CERC3 meets annually. A number of observers are also invited,
including representatives from the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC),
the European Commission, the European Science Foundation (ESF), the European
Federation of Chemical Engineers (EFCE), the European Communities Chemistry
Council (ECCC), the Federation of European Chemical Societies (FECS), the COST
Technical Committee for Chemistry and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Aims and Scope of the workshop
“Biocatalysis”
Catalysis has been an extremely important research
area within chemistry over the past hundred years, and its importance will even
grow in the future due to the increasing demand for atom efficient, convergent
and low-energy syntheses. One of the greatest promises of catalysis results
from the fact that chemistry has developed methods, reagents and pathways to
break into chemical bonds previously considered inert. Processes of converting
naturally abundant substances into useful small-molecule building blocks have
come into reach. The chemically selective conversion of methane, reduction of
dinitrogen under mild conditions or the storage of sunlight energy by
photolysis of water and generation of molecular hydrogen, as great as the
challenges may be, are no longer pure fantasies, but are intensively studied
experimentally. A good deal of these studies war initiated by nature
demonstrating that from the chemical point of view even the most difficult
reactions can take place if only the proper enzymes, i.e., catalysts, are
available. The structures of numerous enzymes and their active centers have
been elucidated. Now we know where all the atoms are, but we still do not know
how they work. This is the point where bioinorganic and bioorganic chemists are
called upon to elucidate structure-activity relationships determining the
reactivity of the active centers and to realize these relationships with
small-molecule model compounds. This workshop is intended to bring together
young chemists active in the field and to encourage them to keep pursuing their
goals however high they are.
Prof. Dieter Sellmann, Erlangen
(† 06.05.2003)
