Department welcomes 130 new students
Monday 20th September 2010
The Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry is welcoming 130 new first year students to the department this month.
Head of Department, Professor Peter Skabara said: "We are delighted to see such a high-calibre of new students joining us this year. Undergraduate students are the lifeblood of the department. We look forward to guiding them through their studies, helping them in their industrial placement, and seeing them graduate and go on to well-paid careers."
The new recruits are on one of a number of MChem and MSci courses including Chemistry; Forensic & Analytical Chemistry; Applied Chemistry & Chemical Engineering; Chemistry with Drug Discovery; and our new MChem Chemistry with Teaching degree. All the courses are accredited by the relevant professional bodies including the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Forensic Science Society, the Institute of Chemical Engineers and the General Teaching Council (Scotland). The degrees take five years to complete, and include a year-long, paid industrial placement, project or teaching practice in the fourth year.
Dr Mark Dufton, Academic Selector, said: "In a time when university places are at a premium, we are pleased we can successfully place these highly qualified young people. The numbers are in large measure, a reflection of the success of Scottish and UK school teachers in generating enthusiasm for the science, and the high reputation that Strathclyde Chemistry graduates have earned over the years. As well as promoting academic excellence, we help our new students to settle in and make friends as quickly as possible. We have a very active student society and there are many opportunities for new students to gain advice from students in higher years and those who have already graduated and started their careers."
The students begin the new term in the week commencing 20th September when they come to meet with their counsellors in the Thomas Graham building.
Find out more about our Undergraduate Courses or gain Information for Schools.
1.5 Million euros for Chemistry's Rein Ulijn
Thursday 16th September 2010
University of Strathclyde Professor awarded ERC Starting Grant for Nanochemistry Research
Professor Rein Ulijn has won a €1.5 million ERC Starting Grant for his work on using biocatalysis to control the assembly of new functional nanomaterials (Enzyme-Driven Molecular Nanosystems).
Functional nanomaterials are predicted to have an enormous impact on some of the most pressing issues of 21st Century society, including next-generation health care and energy related technologies. The preferred route to their production is by molecular self-assembly; however it is a major challenge to achieve the desired complexity and molecular precision required. The biological world is full of examples where functional and complex structures are produced with exquisite precision and efficiency, and it would be highly attractive if nature's approaches to nanofabrication could be exploited in the laboratory.
Rein will be using the grant over the next five years to explore the fundamental basis of nanotechnology in biology, mimicking and exploiting these biological processes to develop new approaches for the improved synthesis of more complex, functional nanomaterials.
Uses for novel biologically inspired materials, which are expected to be especially well-suited to interface man-made materials with biological systems, include biosensing, tissue repair and gel phase electronics.
This highly interdisciplinary work crosses the boundaries of Material Science, Chemistry and Biotechnology.
European Research Council Starting Independent Researcher Grants (ERC Starting Grants)
ERC Starting Grants aim to support up-and-coming talented researchers - the research leaders of the future. They are prestigious European grants that are awarded to individuals who have the proven potential of becoming independent research leaders. Awards are made not only on the basis of the research proposal, but also on the track record of the researcher and their earlier achievements.
Rein plans to use the grant to appoint three postdoctoral research assistants and purchase essential equipment. The University of Strathclyde will provide resources for two PhD students and newly refurbished flexible laboratory space for the group.
Rein Ulijn
Rein Ulijn moved back to the University of Strathclyde to take up a WestCHEM Chair in Chemistry in 2008. Prior to that he was an academic member of staff at the University of Manchester and also spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh. Professor Ulijn took his MSc degree in Biotechnology at the University of Wageningen (NL) and gained a PhD in Physical Chemistry at the University of Strathclyde in 2001.
He is an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow, holder of a five year Leverhulme Trust Leadership Award and was awarded the 2007 Macro Group UK Young Researchers Medal in recognition of his work on polymeric biomaterials.
Enzyme-Driven Molecular Nanosystems
Bottom-up approaches, using self-assembly principles, are increasingly considered to be the most appropriate routes for the synthesis of functional nanomaterials. However, despite significant advances in recent years, it is still a major challenge to access precisely defined nano-structures in the laboratory.
The biological world provides numerous outstanding examples of highly complex functional nano-scale architectures with attractive features such as defect repair, adaptability, molecular recognition and programmability. It is the objective of the project to explore the concept of (bio-) catalytic self-assembly, a bio-inspired approach for bottom-up synthesis of complex nanomaterials. The project will build on the group's recent pioneering work in this area (which was published in Nature Nanotechnology, 2009) and develop a comprehensive toolbox to allow for controlled access of desired structures.
The group will explore three unique features of these systems (i) spatiotemporal control, (ii) catalytic amplification, either towards or away from equilibrium and the tempting vision of (iii) dynamic systems with emergent properties. In their approach they aim to encompass the entire spectrum from fundamental understanding to eventual societal benefit.
Alongside the fundamental aims, the group wish to put their methodologies to use, in collaboration with experts in these fields, to develop novel functional materials towards applications in next-generation biomaterials and gel-phase supramolecular (opto-) electronic materials.