The two-day Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) Symposium on Chemistry of Complex Matter at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) kicked off with a Nobel Laureate’s distinguished lecture on 14 November.

 

The symposium invited scholars and renowned chemists from Europe and China to share their academic discoveries through a series of lectures delivered during the event.

 

Professor Way Kuo, CityU President, said at the opening ceremony that CityU had been performing well and was now ranked 55th in the world, according to Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). CityU established IAS to deepen professional education and academic research and provide solutions for the world challenges.

 

Professor Lu Jian, Vice-President (Research and Technology) of CityU and Acting Director of IAS, said that the institute encouraged collaboration among the world’s leading scholars to address society problems. IAS’ contribution to advanced knowledge and innovative idea was at the frontier of science and engineering, he added.

 

Professor Jean-Marie Lehn, IAS Senior Fellow and Director of the Laboratory of Supramolecular Chemistry at the University of Strasbourg, France, delivered the opening lecture titled “Perspective in Chemistry: From Supramolecular Chemistry towards Adaptive Chemistry”.

 

Supramolecular chemistry is a dynamic chemistry due to the liability of non-covalent interactions, according to Professor Lehn, who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1987 with two other scholars for his studies on the chemical basis of “molecular recognition”.

 

He said that Constitutional Dynamic Chemistry (CDC) enabled adaption through exchange, incorporation and decorporation of the components of a supramolecular entity in response to a physical stimulus or a chemical effector.

 

CDC generates networks of dynamically interconverting constituents, constitutional dynamic networks, presenting agonistic and antagonistic relationship between their constituents.

 

Professor Lehn concluded that the implementation of these concepts points to the emergence of adaptive and evolutive chemistry, and towards a chemistry of complex matter.

 

The other lectures during the symposium included:

 

·         “Dynamic Systems for Reaction Networks, Synthesis and Catalysis”, by Professor Olof Ramstr?m, Department of Chemistry, KTH-Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden;

 

·         “Janusarene” by Professor Wang Jiaobing, School of Chemistry, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China;

 

·         “EuroTracker Dyes and Probes” by Professor David Parker, Department of Chemistry, Durham University, Durham, UK;

 

·         “Dynamic Constitutional Frameworks” by Dr Mihail Barboiu, Adaptive Supramolecular Nanosystems Group, Institut Européen des Membrances- University of Montpellier II, France; and

 

·         “Dynamic Supramolecular Polymers as Functional Materials” by Professor Nicolas Giuseppone, Institut Charles Sadron, CNRS and University of Strasbourg, France.