International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry

Current Project

Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry Division (III)
and
Physical and Biophysical Chemistry Division (I)

Interdivisional project also involving all Divisions and COCI

Number: 2005-042-1-300

Title: Chemistry for Biology - an inventory of interdivisional and interdisciplinary activities within IUPAC in the field of biological chemistry

Task Group
Chairman: Torbjörn Norin

Members: George M. Blackburn, David A. Evans, Uwe Karst, Jan Labuda, Upendra K. Pandit, Willie Peijnenberg, and Kazuyuki Tatsumi

Objective:
Biological Chemistry is a rapidly developing multi-disciplinary area with strong links to molecular and mechanistic topics. The objective is to make a feasibility study and an inventory of current and planned IUPAC activities in the area and also to suggest and initiate new activities.

Description:
Biological Chemistry is a multi-disciplinary area with strong links to fundamental molecular and mechanistic topics. These topics are essential for the progress in the field. IUPAC shall be visible and shall have a central role in efforts to support strong links between chemistry and biology. The medicinal area and, to some extent, also the agricultural area have, already brought these two basic sciences together and have a lot of experience of multi-disciplinary research and development. However, IUPAC, with its Divisions, is mainly based on basic chemistry and its applications. Focus has been on fundamental chemistry and on its industrial applications, which has been successful and shall always be the fundament of IUPAC. However, new scientific areas of multi-disciplinary nature are approaching and there is a need to include these within the work of IUPAC. Biological Chemistry is such a topic.

Informal discussions at the Beijing GA resulted in a proposal to establish contacts with interested partners within IUPAC to form an informal discussion forum for the coordination and promotion of activities within the area of biological chemistry. The aim of the project is to provide this forum. The project will stimulate contacts and interactions between scientists who are active in the field. The aim of the project is to make an inventory and a feasibility study in order to present some proposals for IUPAC activities within this area.

Progress:

> May 2006 report update (pdf file - 14KB)

> June 2007 - A collection of representative scientific articles is being selected for a special issue of PAC on Chemistry for Biology. The editorial work on this issue is now in progress and publication is planned for December 2007. A final report is planned to be
submitted in connection with the publication of the special issue.

> Dec 2007 - A Sympposium-in-print that illustrates the fundameantal role of chemistry in a wide variety of biological topics has been published as a special issue of PAC 2007, Vol. 79, No. 12, pp. 2179-2366.

It should be pointed out that the present Symposium-in-Print complements the contributions from several recent IUPAC-sponsored conferences such as the combined International Conference on Biodiversity (ICOB-5) and International Symposium on the Chemistry of Natural Products (ISCNP-25) in Kyoto, Japan, 2006 [PAC 2007, 79(4), 467-823], and the 9th Eurasia Conference on Chemical Sciences, Antalya, Turkey, 2006 [PAC 2007, 79(12), 2101-2366]. Taken together, these contributions constitute a broad spectrum of illustrations demonstrating the role and the fundamental implications of chemistry for biology.

Last update: 17 December 2007

Page last modified 17 December 2007.
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