The New Chemical Bond Distribution

In our biennial member surveys, we ask first-time participants in section events, “Why have you not attended {xyz event} before?” And what we hear most often is, “I didn’t know about it.” For those of us in the communication end of things, that’s a bit frustrating because we think we’re doing all we can to inform, even cajole, member interest.

Well, almost all. Until now, the Chemical Bond reminder email list has been opt-in. We had about 80 opters, and among them, pretty good readership ratios. But 80 is only a minuscule splinter of the 1400-ish section members with email addresses disclosed. So, after careful consideration given to all your busy in-boxes, the Board of Directors decided to convert the reminder list to opt-out. Over the summer, all members who had not already opted out were subscribed to the list. That’s why, if you’d never seen a Chemical Bond reminder email before, you got one this month.

These reminders will hit you only nine times a year. We hope you’ll be able to make good and efficient use of them, if not every month, at least often enough to make the browse worthwhile. However, if you really don’t want to be prompted about new newsletter issues anymore, just use the unsubscribe from Chemical Bond reminders link at the bottom of the email (not here), and you’re covered. Permanently. We won’t do this again!

And now, the news ....

Midwest Mass Spectrometry Discussion Group Annual Picnic

The Midwest Mass Spectrometry Group held its annual picnic and poster session the evening of August 21 at Washington University. More than 20 posters were displayed and there was lively discussion among the 75 attendees which included students, faculty, and both government and industrial scientists. The event allows local scientists to show posters from recent conferences and provides an opportunity for researchers to see what their collegues have been doing. The Midwest MS Discussion Group is supported by the St. Louis Section of the ACS and several industrial sponsors. For more information about its activities, please visit the St. Louis Section website.

Call For Nominations For the "St. Louis Chemical Science and Technology Award"

The St. Louis Chemical Science and Technology Award is presented to a chemist in the St. Louis area who has demonstrated a high degree of professionalism and scientific contribution.

Criteria used to judge the award include technical proficiency, presentations, coaching/teamwork, and additional professional activities.

The award will consist of a plaque, a $500 honorarium, and dinner for the awardee and a guest at the annual Recognition Night.

To be eligible, the nominee should have an Associate, Bachelor's, or Master's Degree in chemistry or a chemistry-related curriculum. The nominee need not be a St. Louis Section-ACS member to be eligible.

Letters of nomination must be received by December 19, 2014. The nominating letter should address the critieria above. A current work address, phone number, and email address must be provided for each nominee.

To submit a nomination, contact: Chemical Science and Technology Award Coordinator, Adrienne Mazdra, (314)-513-4035, amazdra@stlcc.edu

The 2014 Annual St. Louis Section ACS Picnic

The 10th annual St. Louis-ACS section picnic was held on June 14. The event drew a nice crowd of about 30 members, spouses, and children hosted once again at the centrally located Tilles Park in Ladue. For his turn as host, immediate past chair Ziad Ramadan went wa-a-a-ay above and beyond expectations with a delectable feast of both traditional picnic fare and exotic middle-eastern delicacies: stuffed grape leaves, skewered meat, roasted vegetables, and a lot of etc.

The weather was, in a word, fine. Which is not always the case.

The semi-official section photojournalist, Vic Lewchenko, was in atttendance and able to capture the event. His shared Flickr photostream of the event is available, so you can delight in further images from the picnic if you wish.

Seeking ACS Member to Coordinate Science Fair Chemistry Awards April 29, 2015

Sheryl Loux, the current Coordinator for the Science Fair Chemistry Awards will be out of the country for the April 29, 2015 Greater St. Louis Science Fair at Queeny Park. A volunteer is needed to coordinate our judges. Skills needed: good facility with Excel spreadsheet data sorting and printing, willing to serve as phone contact and equipment needed will be computer with color printer. All award books, certificates, etc. will already be available. Judge solicitation will already have taken place. Sheryl will help with whatever training you wish. You will be responsible to make any newly needed nametags for judges, printing judges’ thank-you certificates to bring, bringing all needed items to the fair, coordinating judges assignments, ensuring awards are recorded correctly, keeping a copy of the awardees and turning in all awards to organizers for distribution.

Also in the future, anyone wanting to co-chair to move into becoming the Coordinator for the Science fair Chemistry Awards would be welcomed.

Please contact Sheryl Loux via email (sjloux@gmail.com) to volunteer. For questions, call her at 636-237-5149

National Chemistry Week - The Sweet Side of Chemistry!

How sweet it is...this years theme for NCW is "The Sweet Side of Chemistry". Celebration of this public outreach event will be on October 25 at the St. Louis Science Center. Participants and volunteers needed to sweeten up our Chemistry Expo to the way chemistry affects our everyday life. To join us at this event or if you have any questions, contact Greg Wall, email: gwall37@msn.com

Board of Directors

St Louis Section–ACS Board of Directors meets the second Thursday of each month, usually at the Glen Echo Country Club (map and driving directions). Meetings are open to all members, and all are encouraged to attend. Elected officers and chairs of major committees vote on questions put to the Board; others in attendance have voice but no vote.

If you want to attend for dinner, please contact the section Chair at least a week in advance. Usual cost of the dinner is $25 ($12 for post-docs and unemployed members). Members wishing to become active in section activities are welcomed for their first dinner as guests of the section.

Date: September 11
Social hour: 5:30 pm
Business meeting: 6:30 pm (suspended for dinner when served)
Future meetings: October 9, November 13, December 11

Saint Louis University

Seminars are on Fridays at 12 noon in Carlo Auditorium, Tegeler Hall, unless noted otherwise. Refreshments follow. For more information, contact Jim Edwards, jedward5@slu.edu.

September 12
Steven Ray
Indiana University
Distance of Flight Mass Spectrometry: Developing a New Approach for Mass Separation and Analysis

September 19
Richard Crooks
University of Texas at Austin
Teaching an Old Dog a Few New Tricks: Hollow Channels, Sliding Paper, and Non-Enzymatic Amplification for Disposable Electrochemical Sensors

September 26
Holden Thorp
Washington University

University of Missouri–St Louis

Mondays at 4 pm in 451 Benton Hall, unless otherwise specified. Refreshments 15 minutes prior to seminar time. For more information, contact the Chemistry Department, 314.516.5311.

September 15
Henry C. Foley
University of Missouri Columbia
The Design and Preparation of a New Shape Selective Pt-C Cat with High Effectiveness for Liquid Phase Reactions

September 22
Gregory K. Friestad
University of Iowa
Taming Free Radicals: Radical Polar Crossover and other Approaches for Asymmetric Synthesis of Bioactive Compounds

September 29
Chrys Wesdemiotis
University of Akron

Washington University

Seminars are in McMillen 311 at 4 pm unless otherwise noted. For information, contact: Liviu Mirica, mirica@wustl.edu.

September 4
Chung-Yuan Mou
National Taiwan University
Nanoscale Therapeutics and Diagnostics

September 5
Chung-Yuan Mou
National Taiwan University
Mimicking Copper Enzymes

September 18
Hao Xu
Georgia State University
Searching for New Reactivity: Iron-Catalyzed Stereoselective Nitrogen Atom Transfer Reactions for Olefin Difunctionalization

September 25
Jennifer Heemstra
University of Utah
Harnessing Nucleic Acid Molecular Recognition and Self-Assembly for Biosensing and Biomolecular Imaging