Indo-US Workshop on Building Bridges, Forging Bonds For 21st Century Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology

Principal Investigators:

M.K. Gurjar, National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India
Email: gurjar@dalton.ncl.res.in

Tamara Nameroff, American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, USA
Email: t_nameroff@acs.org

Date & Venue: 6 January 2006 Pune, 12 January 2006, Hyderabad, India

A workshop for early-career scientists from India and the United States, partially funded by IUSSTF, “book ended” two major scientific conferences sponsored by the American Chemical Society (ACS) and India’s Council on Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). A three-day conference, titled Building Bridges, Forging Bonds for 21st Century Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology (OCCB) was held at National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) in Pune from 7-9 January. A follow-on symposium, Advances in Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology (OCCB), was held at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) in Hyderabad from 11-12 January 2006.

These workshops were an integral part of a new international initiative of the ACS to engage with the Indian scientific community to enhance scientific collaboration between U.S. and Indian researchers. By being able to participate in and present the results of their work at both events, workshop participants, 10 young US scientists and 12 early career Indian chemists, gained excellent exposure to the high-quality scientific research being performed in the United States and India, and were able to network extensively with their peers and other colleagues participating in the meeting.

Interactive sessions on topical areas like organic synthesis; supra-molecular chemistry; chemical biology; drug discovery; process research and organo-metallic chemistry were held. The format provided an opportunity to discuss future directions of the field and identify promising areas of investigation and exposed the US scientist to both NCL & IICT facilities. The event helped in building collaborative networks and catalyzed the development of individual research collaborations amongst young researchers.