Professor Thorfinnur Gunnlaugsson recieves to ICI David Brown Award

Many congratulations are in order for Professor Thorfinnur Gunnlaugsson as he was awrded the highly prestigious ICI David Brown Award at the 2023 Inorganic Ireland Symposium!

This award was established in 2014 to honour Professor David Brown of University College Dublin in recognition of his enormous contribution to inorganic chemistry both nationally and internationally. This award later began to be presented to a colleague who has made an outstanding contribution to inorganic chemistry.

Professor Gunnlaugsson also delievered a fine talk at the symposium, titled ‘Tails of two endeavours! The application of lanthanides and Ru(II) in the formation of luminescent supramolecular systems.’ As always, Professor Gunnlaugsson continually contributes to the chemical research field with so much zeal and we couldn’t be more thankful for his efforts. Once again, congratulations on this great achievement!

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New RSC book edited by Thorri in collaboration with good friends!

A new book “Supramolecular Chemistry in Biomedical Imaging” was published on the 1st of April this year! The book (https://doi.org/10.1039/9781782624028) is the 33^rd in the RSC Book series “Monographs in Supramolecular Chemistry”, and was edited by Thorri in collaboration with his good friends Prof. Steve Faulkner (Oxford) and Gearόid M. Ó Máille (TCD, now at ERC). The book, which is 330 pages long, consists of ten chapters, with contributions from supramolecular chemists with expertise in supramolecular chemistry, synthesis, spectroscopy, microscopy, physical evaluations, and all kinds of imaging to name just a few of the topics covered! Contributors from TCD included former PhD students from the TG Lab and Dr. Adam Henwood (TG Lab), Prof. Eoin Scanlan and Prof. Yurii Gunk’o, as well as former TCD graduate Prof. Rob Doyle now a Professor at University of Syracuse and Dr. Célia S. Bonnet a former TG-Lab postdoc and now at Chargée de Recherche CNRS.  As can be seen below Thorri was rather delighted to receive the printed copy of the book in the post the other day! A big thanks goes to all those who contributed and to the RSC Books staff for all their fantastic help and support! The ‘Trio’ Thorri, Steve and Gearόid have been friends for many years! Thorri and Steve having been postdocs together at Durham University with Prof. Dave Parker, over 25 years ago, while Gearόid received funding from the IRC to carry out back-to-back postdocs with both Steve and Thorri!

Congratulations Hannah for Demonstrating Prize and crystallography PR!

Third year PhD student Hannah Dalton was recently awarded the Barry-McCabe prize for demonstrating by the School of Chemistry. This prize was established by the School of Chemistry to mark the long standing contributions made to undergraduate teaching and postgraduate research by Mr. Brendan Barry and Dr. Tom McCabe. It is awarded annually to an outstanding postgraduate demonstrator of the JF Chemistry Module (CH1102) which spans aspects of organic and inorganic chemistry.

In April, Hannah received a bursary from the IUCr to attend the 16^th BCA/CCG Intensive Teaching School in X-Ray structure analysis, a week-long course covering theoretial and practical aspects of X-Ray structural analysis that is run every other year. She was also featured in their monthly journal.

http://www.iucr.org/news/notices/announcements/custom-designed-supramolecular-materials

Well done Hannah!

Two-photon bone imaging research highlighted by Chem

Our paper “Two-Photon Luminescent Bone Imaging Using Europium Nanoagents“, published last year in Cell Press’ journal Chem, was highlighted by the journal as one of six papers from 2016 that was of particular scientific importance. Once again, congrats to Esther and Steve on their work.

Bone nanoagent paper featured by news agency Reuters

Esther’s work on cyclen-appended gold nanoparticles, which can be used to image microcracks in damaged bone, has been featured by the international news agency Reuters. The work which was published last year as a cover article in Chem, the new journal from Cell Press.

Leigh’s group make headlines with Octafoil knot

X-ray crystal structure of Leigh’s 8₁₉ knot-Fe(II) complex

Leigh and coworkers have created the first example of a molecular ‘octafoil knot’, a novel topology which crosses itself eight times. The work was published in Science last week. This fascinating and beautiful discovery was quickly noticed by NewScientist magazine, who published an article on this step forward in the world of molecular knots and links. Several scientists, including Thorri Gunnlaugsson, were interviewed as part of the article.

Lanthanide Nanoagents Article Published in and Featured on the Front Cover of the New Cell Press Journal Chem

Esther’s work on the front cover of Issue 3 of Chem. Chris and Amy helped to design the cover.

Great news on the publication front as Drs Esther Surender and Steve Comby celebrate their paper titled “Two-Photon Luminescent Bone Imaging Using Europium Nanoagents” being recently published in  Chem, a new and upcoming journal from Cell Press. Not only was their work featured on the front cover of the issue, it was also picked up by several of the national broadcasters for Ireland, being reported in RTE news, the Irish Independent, Irish Examiner and Silicon Republic. Congratulations to Esther and Steve on this great achievement! Thanks to all the authors of the article for their contribution. 

Esther is Profiled in Chem ‘Potential Energy’ Piece

Huge congrats to Dr. Esther Surender on her Potential Energy article published in Chem titled “Exploring New Frontiers in Medical Diagnostics through Collaboration“. This short article discusses her PhD research project which led to the teams article “Two-Photon Luminescent Bone Imaging Using Europium Nanoagents“, as well the benefits of pursing a multidisciplinary PhD.

A small portion of Esther’s profile in Chem

Chris and Amy appear in The Irish Times

Chris and Amy from the group recently appeared in The Irish Times national newspaper as part of a feature article on an imagery competition, held in Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI), to showcase the variety of research that is currently being carried out within the institute. This competition was part of the 5^th anniversary celebrations of TBSI. The composite image made by Chris and Amy was based on soon to be published work on liquid crystal tricarboxamide derivatives developed by the pair, with one of the images used obtained in collaboration with the Pal Group in Durham University. Their contribution is now on show in the foyer of TBSI.

Image entered based on liquid crystal tricarboxamide derivatives

Amy and Chris with their image

Lights, Camera, Action!

Prof. Gunnlaugsson, Prof. Clive Lee, and Dr. Esther Surender were recently interviewed about their upcoming publication on bone diagnostics, which is to be featured in the Cell Press journal Chem.

Esther discusses her work at her bench!

Getting ready in the Boardroom

Thorri explaining the importance of the work

Thanks to all for their input and effort throughout the day. Great to see our press release and video were picked up by several broadcasters in Ireland and abroad, including the RTE news, the Irish Independent and Irish Examiner.