Chemistry for Health

Organizers:
Guillaume Lamoureux, Rutgers University
Justin Siegel, University of California Davis, USA

Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming an indispensable tool for molecular design. Enabled by the development of modern machine learning techniques and the expansion of chemical and biological data sets, it creates powerful new representations of chemical knowledge and allows efficient search of vast chemical spaces for compounds with desired properties.

This symposium will bring together researchers interested in applying machine learning to the design of new molecules. It will cover a broad range of health-focused applications such as drug design (or repurposing of existing drugs), design of biocatalysts (for greener synthetic routes), biomaterial design, synthetic biology, and development of new diagnostic and monitoring tools.

Cross-listed with Chemistry for Society.

Organizer:
Jane Weitzel, Independent consultant, Winnipeg, Canada

In 2018 Canada passed the Cannabis Act which legalized the production and sale of cannabis for recreational purposes. While this is estimated to be a billion-dollar industry, the legalization of cannabis has emphasized the importance of chemistry: from setting regulatory requirements, evaluating health effects, and to provide infrastructure for measuring cannabinoids and other constituents. This symposium will draw from the success of similar events at CCCE2019 and provide insights and perspectives from Canada’s cannabis industry leaders.

Organizer:
Jeremy Melanson, National Research Council Canada

The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest challenge to face our generation and will likely change our way of life for years to come. The response to the pandemic by the chemistry community has been nothing short of outstanding, with many research and industrial laboratories pivoting from their conventional roles to efforts directed at safeguarding society. While impossible to measure, these efforts will undoubtedly save lives over the course of the pandemic.

This symposium will highlight COVID-19 efforts in the international chemistry community. Topics will include but are not limited to diagnostic testing and standardization, hand sanitizer development, and materials development and testing of personal protective equipment (PPE). Methods for early outbreak detection, such as virus detection in municipal sewage systems, will also be relevant to this symposium. Finally, chemical aspects of COVID-19 therapeutics, vaccine candidates, and antibody testing will also be highlighted.

Cross-listed with Chemistry for Society.

Organizers:
Brigitte Van Tiggelen, Science History Institute, Philadelphia, USA
Christopher Rutty, University of Toronto, Canada
Elizabeth Neswald, Brock University, Canada

Every human activity leaves traces behind, memory is the way both the actors and the public relate to these traces, but it needs history to process this memory and transform it into heritage which speaks to all audiences. To chemists, it provides a sense of belonging and situates them in a longer chain of scientific development, and to the general public, it is an opportunity to increase awareness for the chemical sciences and technologies beyond the usual suspicion and fears, and grasp the full nature of scientific endeavour.

The 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin at the University of Toronto provides an excellent opportunity to focus on a scientific achievement that radically changed the perception of diabetes and offered hope of a better life for patients thanks to the labour, ingenuity and collaboration of life sciences researchers, biochemists and industrial chemists. It took physicians Frederick Banting, J. J. R. Macleod, Charles Best, and biochemist James Collip to isolate and purify insulin, which was soon put in production by Connaught Laboratories under the leadership of John G. FitzGerald and then on a larger scale by the American pharmaceutical company Ely Lilly. While Banting and Macleod received the most coveted award in the academic world, the Nobel prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1923, the industrial involvement was no less crucial nor the training of health practitioners and patients.

The symposium will thus gather papers that cover topics on both the history and the preservation of this discovery and its wider context. Papers dealing with the history of the discovery of insulin, the history of diabetes, the role of cross collaboration between different fields of expertise, patenting and producing, controlling quality and access for the patients, emergence of production in developing countries, are welcome. Also welcome are case studies of the preservation and the presentation of these momentous events through archival records, scientific heritage sites, exhibits and digital collections (such as Banting House, the permanent exhibit at the MaRS Centre, or the online exhibit The Discovery and Early Development of Insulin).

Organizer:
David Vocadlo, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Jen Prescher, UC Riverside, USA
Kim Bonger, Radboud University, Netherlands

Invited Speakers:
Jeff Chan, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA
Ellen Sletten, University of California, Los Angeles
Maja Kohn, University of Freiburg, Germany
Arnaud Gautier, Sorbonne University, France
David Vocadlo, Simon Fraser University
Mako Kamiya, University of Tokyo, Japan
Jen Prescher, University of California, Irvine, USA
Jin Zhang, University of California, San Diego, USA
Amy Weeks, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Mia Huang, Scripps Research, USA
Abishek Chatterjee, Boston College, USA
Kim Bonger, Radboud University, Netherlands
Yimon Aye, EPFL, Switzerland
Catherine Grimes, BU
Hermen Overkleeft, Leiden University, Netherlands
Hiroaki Suga, The University of Tokyo, Japan

Advances in cytometry and high-throughput proteomics are enabling fundamental new insights into cell and animal biology. Central to the full exploitation of these powerful analytical methods are the creation of chemical tools and strategies that can enable new experimental modalities. Such new approaches at the interface of chemistry and biology for isotopic labeling of cellular components, incorporation of unnatural amino acids, metabolic precursors for cell labeling, genetically encoded chemical tags, and various cellular imaging probes are all permitting unprecedented characterization of cellular physiology. Furthermore, next generation “switchable” molecules are starting to enable researchers to exert spatiotemporal control over a range of fundamental cellular functions. Accordingly, a symposium focused on the latest advances in the development and implementation of emerging chemical biology tools in cutting edge biology applications would be timely and of wide general interest for the community of chemists and chemical biologists.

Two sessions will focus on creation and use of chemical and chemical genetic tools for imaging cells and their physiological processes. One session will be focused on new advances in exploiting incorporation of artificial amino acids and other building blocks. And one session will focus on tagging end engineering approaches to control cellular function and drive biological discovery.

Cross-listed with Chemistry for Society.

Organizer:
Jeremy Melanson, National Research Council Canada
John Pezacki, University of Ottawa, Canada

Award lecture:
John Pezacki, University of Ottawa, Canada – 2021 CSC Bernard Belleau Award recipient

Invited speakers:
Jean-François Masson, Université de Montréal, Canada
Joelle Pelletier, Université de Montréal, Canada
Matthias Gotte, University of Alberta, Canada
Walid Houry, University of Toronto, Canada
Jim Huggett, National Measurement Laboratory, UK
John Trant, University of Windsor, Canada
Frederick West, University of Alberta, Canada
Devanand Pinto, National Research Council Canada

The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest challenge to face our generation and will likely change our way of life for years to come. The response to the pandemic by the chemistry community has been nothing short of outstanding, with many research and industrial laboratories pivoting from their conventional roles to efforts directed at safeguarding society. While impossible to measure, these efforts will undoubtedly save lives over the course of the pandemic.

This symposium will highlight COVID-19 efforts in the international chemistry community. Topics will include but are not limited to diagnostic testing and standardization, hand sanitizer development, and materials development and testing of personal protective equipment (PPE). Methods for early outbreak detection, such as virus detection in municipal sewage systems, will also be relevant to this symposium. Finally, chemical aspects of COVID-19 therapeutics, vaccine candidates, and antibody testing will also be highlighted.

Organizer:
Alexis Vallée-Bélisle, Université de Montréal, Canada
Corinne Hoesli, Université du Québec à Montréal
Ramakrishna Venugopalan,
Bruno Frey,

Invited speakers:
Vignesh Muthuvijayan, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India
Sam Wadsworth, Aspect Biosystems, Canada

Devices for sensing and drug delivery as well as implementable devices are currently a major focus of research in health science. However, at present, most of these technologies are plagued by a variety of issues that affect their accuracy, long-term performance. This symposium will bring together key academic and industrial players in that field to enable a critical comparison of existing technologies, highlighting critical issues of device accuracy, foreign body response, calibration, and miniaturization (focusing on the chemical aspect). An outlook on future developments with an emphasis on challenges related to commercialization will also be presented at the end of each days through a panel of key industrial players.

Organizer:
Anthony Mittermaier, McGill University, Canada
Denize Favarro, University of Campinas, Brazil
Frans Mulder, Aarhus University, Denmark
Elisa Fadda, Maynooth University, Ireland

Award lecture:
Anthony Mittermaier, McGill University, Canada – 2021 CSC Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Lectureship Award recipient

Invited speakers:
Phil Anfinrud, National Institute of Health, USA
Petra Fromme, Arizona State University, USA
Scott Prosser, University of Toronto, Canada
Fabio Gozzo, University of Campinas, Brazil
Amanda Hummon, Ohio State University, USA
Philipp Kukura, Oxford University, United Kingdom
Alexandra Ros, Arizona State University, USA
Sarah Rauscher, University of Toronto, Canada
Rommie Amaro, University of California – San Diego, USA
John Chodera, Sloan Kettering Institute, USA
Syma Khalid, University of Southampton, United Kingdom
Priya Banerjee, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, USA

This symposium would aim to identify and bring together new characterization technologies with the potential for high impact in future biomedical research. The emphasis would be on bold ideas at the proof-of-principle stage, with the unifying theme of addressing health challenges at the level of biomolecular structure, dynamics, interactions, and function. These could include both experimental and theoretical modalities, for instance, novel instruments, protocols, applications, and innovative computational approaches. Representative topics include new mass spectrometry approaches for characterizing the structures of proteins and protein complexes in vivo; serial femtosecond crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance methods to generate atomic-resolution movies of biomolecular machines; new single-molecule techniques enabling simultaneous force and conformation measurements; DNA barcoding for massively parallel biomolecular interaction analysis; and molecular dynamics simulations of extremely large systems up to the size of organelles.

Cross-listed with Chemistry for Sustainability.

Organizers:
Kevin Wilkinson, Université de Montréal, Canada
Patrick Hayes, Université de Montréal, Canada
Hind Al-Abadleh, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
Bradley Miller, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, USA

In the urban environment, humans are exposed to a variety of different toxic elements and compounds, including both legacy contaminants, as well as contaminants of emerging concern. This exposome may cause negative long-term health impacts, even when no specific recommended limit for an environmental concentration has been exceeded, due to either “cocktail-effects” resulting from simultaneous exposure to many contaminants or a lack of established limits for contaminants of emerging concern. In this context, this symposium invites contributions that are focused on the physicochemistry of (inorganic and organic) chemicals in the air, water or food or their roles as vectors of contaminant uptake. Laboratory, field or modeling studies are solicited with emphasis on urban environments, agriculture and the chemistry of cold environments. The development of new analytical techniques that could be used to measure environmental pollutants in these three matrices are also welcome.

Cross-listed with Chemistry for Sustainability.

Organizers:
Annemieke Farenhorst, University of Manitoba, Canada
Diane Purchase, Middlesex University London, United Kingdom
Laura McConnell, Bayer Crop Science, USA

Agriculture as a global industry is undergoing rapid transformations with many new and disruptive technologies, spanning multiple scientific disciplines from chemistry, to plant biotechnology, to remote sensing, and data science. Many of these transformations are geared towards improving crop production yields on existing farmlands while protecting precious soil, air and water resources. Advances in soil and water conservation practices for crop and animal production systems, integrated pest management, and precision agriculture are also being implemented to help mitigate the effects of climate change, reduce the need for pesticides to control weeds and insect pests, and safeguard the environment and health. These novel technologies along with targeted conservation and mitigation measures are being used to improve water quality, increase biodiversity, and to reduce pesticide exposure for humans and wildlife.

With the above context in mind, this symposium is seeking contributors on topics on: 1) Emerging technologies to improve the sustainability of crop production and to improve public health; for example, drones, digital tools, robotics, gene-editing, RNAi, advanced formulations like nanopesticides, and biologics ; 2) Advances in air, soil, water, and biodiversity conservation practices, for example, biobeds, biofilters, biochars, cover crops, vegetative filter strips, pollinator and insect refuges, bird nesting areas, constructed wetlands, and systems approaches to conservation practices. Abstracts might include studies that are solely laboratory-based, but the symposium particularly welcomes research that has a field component. In this symposium we strive for presenters from different regions in the world to maximize the discussion about the lessons learned to date.

Organizers:
Tim Storr, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Charles Walsby, Simon Fraser University, Canada

Award lecture:
Alison Thompson, Dalhousie University, Canada – 2020 CSC Clara Benson Award recipient
Kathleen Prosser, University of California, San Diego, Canada – 2020 CSC CCUCC Chemistry Doctoral Award recipient

Invited Speakers:
Christian Hartinger, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Angela Casini, Technical University of Munich, Germany
Elisa Tomat, University of Arizona, USA
Sherri McFarland, University of Texas at Arlington, USA
Martin Stillman, Western University, Canada
Scott Bohle, McGill University, Canada
Xiao-an Zhang, University of Toronto, Scarborough, Canada
Katherine Franz, Duke University, USA
Annie Castonguay, Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Canada
Justin Wilson, Cornell University, USA
Nora Kulak, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität, Germany
Chris Orvig, University of British Columbia, Canada

This symposium will bring together international researchers to discuss recent developments in the innovative applications of metals in biology and medicine. Recent advances in tailored metalloproteins and enzymes will be highlighted along with metal-based compounds in imaging and disease treatment.

Organizers:
Avena Ross, Queen’s University, Canada
Nadine Ziemert, Universität Tubingen, Germany

Sponsored by: University of Tübingen, Cluster of Excellence CMFI

Award lectures:
Chris Boddy, University of Ottawa, Canada – 2019 CSC IntelliSyn RD Research Excellence Award recipient
Roger Linington, Simon Fraser University, Canada – 2020 CSC IntelliSyn RD Research Excellence Award recipient

Invited speakers:
Daniela Trivella, Centro Nacional de Pesquisa em Energia e Materiais, Brazil
Paco Barona-Gomez, CINVESTAV-UGA, Mexico
Alessandra Eustaquio, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Kaity Ryan, University of British Columbia, Canada
Tanya Gulder, University of Leipzig, Germany
Laura Sanchez, University of California at Santa Cruz, USA
Andriy Luzhetskyy, Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, USA

The unifying theme of the symposium will be the discovery and development of Natural Products as therapeutics and will bring together scientists from across a range of traditional disciplines including Chemical Synthesis, Analytical Chemistry, Computational Chemistry/Biology, Microbiology and Molecular Biology.

Diverse and complementary approaches to studying Natural Products will be represented including: Computational prediction, Methods for discovery of Natural Products, Engineering biosynthetic enzymes and pathways for new Natural Product molecules, Biosynthesis of Natural Products, Chemical Synthesis of Natural Products, Mass Spectrometry for studying Microbe and Pathogen interactions.

Organizers:
Hanadi Sleiman, McGill University, Canada
Christopher Wilds, Concordia University

Sponsored by: ChemGenes Corporation, Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society, NSERC – PROMOTE (CREATE) Program

Award lecture:
Masad J. Damha, McGill University, Canada – 2020 CSC R.U. Lemieux Award recipient

Invited speakers:
Ryan Hili, York University, Canada
Maureen McKeague, McGill University, Canada
Feng Li, Brock University, Canada
Derek O’Flaherty, University of Guelph, Canada
Katherine Bujold, McMaster University, Canada
Karina Carneiro, University of Toronto, Canada
Chunhai Fan, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Mark Bathe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Mano Manoharan, lnylam Pharmaceuticals, USA
Anastasia Khvorova, University of Massachusetts Medical School, USA
Yamuna Krishnan, University of Chicago, USA

The following speakers have been invited to contribute to the symposium and have already confirmed their participation:
Dipankar Sen, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Stacey Wetmore, University of Lethbridge, Canada
Richard Manderville, University of Guelph, Canada
Robert Hudson, Western University, Canada
Yingfu Li, McMaster University, Canada
Tony Yan, Brock University, Canada
Chris Wilds, Concordia University, Canada
Hanadi Sleiman, McGill University, Canada
Jean-Paul Desaulniers, Ontario Tech University, Canada
Maria DeRosa, Carleton University, Canada
Philip Johnson, York University, Canada
Juewen Liu, University of Waterloo, Canada
Nathan Luedtke, McGill University, Canada
Gonzalo Cosa, McGill University, Canada
Nicolas Moitessier, McGill University, Canada
Peter Unrau, Simon Fraser University, Canada

Nucleic acids as therapeutics, diagnostic tools and nanostructures promise to change the landscape of medicine and materials science. From the CRISPR/Cas9 revolution, to the first siRNA therapeutic approval and the first large-scale DNA origami synthesis, we are making excellent strides in this field. This symposium focuses on the exciting achievements as well as the major challenges in the implementation of nucleic acids in the clinic and in advanced materials.

Organizers:
Jumi Shin, University of Toronto, Canada
Violeta Marin, Abbvie, USA

Award lecture:
Fredrick West, University of Alberta, Canada – 2020 CSC Bernard Belleau Award Winner recipient

Invited speakers:
Angela Koehler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Michelle Arkin, University of California San Francisco Parnassus Campus, USA
Chang Liu, University California Irvine, USA
Amanda Worthy Dombrowski, AbbVie, USA
Mark Demma, Merck, USA
Stewart Fisher, Broad Institute/C4 Therapeutics, USA

Novel tools for understanding and treating disease. The topic will overlap with other CSC/IUPAC sessions, and this speaks to the synergy of this transdisciplinary area of research and the diversity of its researchers.

(i) Tools for understanding and treating disease – Peptides and beyond.
This broad theme encompasses protein design and directed evolution, including synthesis of peptidomimetics, small peptides, and combinatorial strategies toward new biotherapeutics.

(ii) Tools for understanding and treating disease – High-throughput screening and selection, -omics-based methods.
The second tools-based session will feature a variety of talks describing rational and non-rational molecular design, theory and computation, and other new strategies toward improving human health.

(iii) Medicinal Chemistry for the development of novel therapies (I).
This mini-session will focus on medicinal chemistry including small/medium-sized molecules produced by state-of-the-art methods including library selections and natural products from unusual sources. Such state-of-the-art methods can be mindful of sustainability practices and developing new ways to make molecules that decrease our carbon footprint and waste, and are economically advantageous. Topics such as the protein degradation field and ARMs would be also covered.

(iv) Medicinal Chemistry for the development of novel therapies (II.)
This session will briefly cover human diseases and conditions, from well-known targets like cancer and cardiovascular disease to conditions like mental health and understanding our brain and nervous system. The session would complement the third session and would focus on animal/human trials with these new treatments, the diseases and conditions that chemists are starting to target with success, natural and bio-inspired products, and the human health problems that we are uncovering now and trying to treat. In addition, a mini-session of tool development for medicinal chemistry with a focus on synthesis will be included.

Cross-listed with Chemistry for Energy, and Chemistry at the Frontiers.

Organizers:
Simon Rondeau-Gagné, University of Windsor, Canada
Tricia B. Carmichael, University of Windsor, Canada

Organic electronics involves materials that are inherently easy to tailor, both electrically and mechanically, to enable functionalities previously unimaginable for conventional electronics. This bourgeoning field unites chemists, materials scientists, physicists, and engineers together in a multidisciplinary research towards the development of the next generation of optoelectronic devices. With a myriad of potential applications ranging from healthcare to energy conversion, new electronic devices with innovative properties and high performance are constantly being developed. This symposium will cover all key aspects of organic electronics to give a comprehensive view of the field from materials and fundamental physics to devices and applications.

Cross-listed with Chemistry for Sustainability.

Organizer:
Nicolas Doucet, INRS-Institut Armand Frappier, Canada
Joelle Pelletier, Université de Montréal, Canada
Pratul Agarwal, Ohio State University, USA

Sponsored by: PROTEO, Codexis 

Award lecture:
Joelle Pelletier, University of Montreal, Canada – 2021 CSC Clara Benson Award recipient

Invited Speakers:
Shelley Minteer, University of Utah, USA
Alain Marty, Carbios, France
Agathe Urvoas, Université Paris-Saclay, France
Adrienne Davenport, BASF, Germany
Rudi Fasan, University of Rochester, USA
Mélanie Hall, University of Graz, Austria
Vesna Mitchell, Codexis, USA
Oscar Alvizo, Codexis, USA
Jiri Damborsky, Masaryk University, Czechia
Derek Wilson, York University, Canada
Silvia Osuna, University of Girona, Spain
Sagar Khare, Rutgers University, USA

From therapeutics to bioremediation, proteins and enzymes have long been used to overcome limitations of chemical synthesis and catalysis. Whether they are involved in protein-protein interactions or accelerating chemical reactions with unparalleled rate enhancements, biocatalysts are highly specific to small-molecule and macromolecular targets, in addition to being most efficient in environmentally-friendly and physiological conditions. However, significant technical challenges associated with the modulation, adaptation, and stability of their molecular structure, in addition to the lack of chemical diversity and yet unmanageable atomic-scale flexibility have significantly hindered new developments and wide-ranging applicability. This multidisciplinary symposium will discuss emerging views and recent applications of protein engineering in drug development and bioprocesses, focusing on newly developed aspects of conformational heterogeneity, biohybrid catalysis, directed evolution, allosteric modulation, in addition to recent computational progress aimed at predicting and controlling their molecular function.

Organizers:
Ali Nazemi, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
John Oh, Concordia University, Canada
Eunji Lee, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea

Award lecture:
Jean Duhamel, University of Waterloo, Canada – 2021 CIC Macromolecular Science & Engineering Award recipient

Invited Speakers:
Eugenia Kumacheva, University of Toronto, Canada
Brent Sumerlin, University of Florida, USA
Heather Maynard, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Eunji Lee, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea
Ashok Kakkar, McGill University, Canada
Steven Street, University of Victoria, Canada
Colin Bonduelle, University of Bordeaux, France
Amitav Sanyal, Bogazi University, Turkey
Zhihong Nie, Fudan University

In recent years, diverse arrays of nanoscale macromolecular systems have emerged in biomedical applications. To a great extent, advances made in this field owe their success to the development of a vast variety of polymers and dendrimers with different structures and topologies. Such macromolecules can either be used directly as nanomaterials in their molecular state or as building blocks for the synthesis of self-assembled nanoparticle-based theranostics (materials with combined therapeutic and diagnostic properties). This symposium will showcase recent advances made in the development and biomedical applications of functional polymers and dendrimers as well as their corresponding soft materials (including micellar and vesicular systems, hydrogels, nano- and micro-gels, and films). Topics covered will include the synthesis and characterization of new polymers and dendrimers for biomedical applications, mechanisms and fabrication approaches related to assembly of such materials into nanoparticles, and the applications of such nanoparticles in disease diagnosis and therapy.

Organizers:
Anthony Rullo, McMaster University, Canada
Katherine Bujold, McMaster University, Canada

Award lecture:
Matthew Macauley, University of Alberta, Canada – 2021 CSC Melanie O’Neill Young Investigator Award recipient

Invited speaker:
Samuel Gellman, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Hanadi Sleiman, McGill University, Canada
David Perrin, University of British Columbia, Canada
Amanda Hargrove, Duke University, USA
Daniel Nomura, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Mia Huang, Scripps Research Institute, USA
David Vocadlo, Simon Fraser University, USA
Christoper Parker, Scripps Research Institute, USA

“Synthetic Tool Development and Mechanistic Chemical Biology” is a symposium focused on the synthetic and physical organic chemistry that enables for interrogation of biological systems. It aims to connect organic chemists, chemical biologists, and mechanistic chemists/biochemists and integrate research findings in these areas towards a better understanding of biological phenomena. The rationale for this symposium is to remove silos that exist in synthetic organic chemistry and chemical biology which inevitably separates those best at designing and producing the tools to study biology, from those most familiar with interrogating biological mechanisms. As such the symposium topics of high interest include but are not exclusive to new bio-conjugation and bio-orthogonal chemical reactions and applications, chemical probe synthesis and target analysis, synthetic immune modulation, structural and synthetic carbohydrate chemistry/glycobiology, thermodynamic and kinetic characterization of biomolecular interactions.

Organizers:
Frank Schweizer, University of Manitoba, Canada
Marya Ahmed, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada

Invited Speakers:
Jürgen Bulitta, University of Florida, USA
Tom Chang, University of Florida, USA
Yaov Finer, University of Toronto, Canada
David Jakeman, Dalhousie University, Canada
Jayachandran Kizhakkedathu, University of British Columbia, Canada
Vincent Rotello, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Katherine Young, Merck, Canada

The emergence and dissemination of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria that are resistant to all or almost all currently available antimicrobials remains one of the pressing central challenges of this century and remains a major threat to public health and global economic recovery. Since ancient times, bacteria have developed multimodal resistance mechanisms to all known antimicrobials. These include poor membrane permeability, membrane modification, suppression of porin expression, efflux, antibiotic inactivation by antibiotic-modifying enzymes, antibiotic target modification by mutations or methylation, biofilm formation and others that are used in concert to negate the activity of antibiotics. To cope with these challenges academic and industrial research explores various therapeutic interventions. This symposium will showcase the latest antibacterial strategies to combat bacterial resistance at the national and international level. The symposium will span over three half days and will cover: (I) Small molecule-based interventions; (II) Materials-based interventions and (III) Interventions on the path towards commercialization.

Cross-listed with Chemistry for Energy, and Chemistry at the Frontiers.

Organizers:
Matteo Duca, Quebec Centre for Advanced Materials (QCAM), Université de Montréal, Canada
Gilles Guichard, Institut Européen de Chimie et Biologie, France
Dongling Ma, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique – Énergie, Matériaux, Télécommunications, Canada
Diego Mantovani, Laboratory for Biomaterials and Bioengineering, Université Laval, Canada
Aline Rougier, Institut de Chimie de la Matière Condensée, France

Inspired by intense transatlantic affinities, complementary and successful exchanges and interactions, this symposium will present research on designing and developing advanced functional materials from two excellence hubs in this field (www.cqmf-qcam.ca and www.u-bordeaux.fr). The symposium will focus on two overarching themes: 1) energy and sustainability; 2) health and biomedical applications. Emphasis will fall on understanding how the chemical underpinnings can pave the way for the design of tailored functional materials.
The richly diverse organizing committee brings together considerable expertise: peptide chemistry and self-assembled materials (Guichard); nanomaterials for energy and environmental remediation (such as photocatalytic degradation of pollutants) (Ma); functional biomaterials for reparative and regenerative medicine (Mantovani); chromogenic materials, and devices and materials for renewable energy (Rougier). Abstracts will be solicited from researchers working at Quebec and Nouvelle Aquitaine institutions, as well as international leaders in these fields interacting (or willing to develop interactions) with Canadian/French partners. Keynote invited speakers will open each half-day session, which will follow a common thread linking talks from both themes. This holistic approach will foster cross-fertilisation and encourage new collaborations. Thus, the symposium will take on a broader significance and its unique angle will enhance the scope of the whole IUPAC-CCCE conference.