OCTOBER 2010

The IOCB Presentation at EXPO 2010

On September 23, 2010, scientists from IOCB presented Czech science on EXPO 2010 in Shanghai, China. The program began with interviews of the IOCB director, Dr. Zdeněk Havlas, and the chairman of the IOCB Board, Dr. Jan Konvalinka, with approximately dozen of Chinese journalists. The interviews were mostly related to the problem of AIDS in Asia and the success of antiviral drugs of Prof. Antonin Holý. In the afternoon, Dr. Lubomír Rulíšek, main organizer of the scientific event presented a warm welcome to approximately 40 distinguished guests from four institutes of Chinese Academy of Sciences with the majority of them from the IOCB counterpart in Shanghai area - Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry. It was followed by welcome address of the Commissioner General of Czech Expo 2010 - Ing. Pavel Antonín Stehlík and the counsel of the Czech Consulate in Shanghai - Ing. Pavel Kalina.

The scientific program was opened by the talk of the IOCB director, Dr. Zdeněk Havlas, who presented an introductory talk about the IOCB, its mission and structure. In the second part of his talk, Dr. Havlas reviewed the achievements of Prof. Holy and tremendous success of his antiviral compounds. Then followed the talks of Dr. Michal Hocek, Dr. Ivo Starý, Dr. Jan Konvalinka, Dr. Irena Valterová, and Dr. Lubomir Rulíšek as the representatives of the various scientific disciplines pursued at IOCB. The whole event on September 23 was concluded by the joint dinner in the Czech restaurant inside the Czech pavilion with a nice selection of Czech meals and beverages.

On September 24, 2010, part of IOCB delegation was invited for the 1st SIOC-IOCB workshop (The First China-Czech Bilateral Forum on Organic Chemistry) which took place in the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry. The workshop was opened by the speech from the SIOC director - Prof. Kuiling Ding who presented a warm welcome to IOCB scientists and gave a brief overview of the SIOC. Prof. Dawei Ma, SIOC deputy director chaired the forum. Three talks were presented by the scientists from SIOC and the same number by the scientists from IOCB with the following titles:

• Cross-Couplings, C-H Activations and Polymerase Incorporations in Construction of Base-Modified Nucleic Acids (Michal Hocek, IOCB)
• A Gold(I)-Catalyzed Glycosylation Reaction for the Total Synthesis of Complex Glycoconjugates (Biao Yu,SIOC)
• The Synthesis, Properties and Use of Helically Chiral Aromatic and Heteroaromatic Systems (Ivo Stary, IOCB)
• Foldamer Approach for Molecular Assemblies (Zhanting Li, SIOC)
• Elucidating Mechanisms of Organic Reactions and Exploring Physicochemical Properties of Organic Compounds by Means of Computational Chemistry (Lubomir Rulisek, IOCB)
• Binding Affinity Prediction: What You Do Not Know About the MM-PB/SA Method (Renxiao Wang, SIOC)

Meeting was closed by the final remarks from Dr. Zdeněk Havlas, IOCB director who expressed his hope that it will be followed by the second SIOC-IOCB meeting in Prague, Czech Republic. The evening was concluded by the joint SIOC-IOCB dinner at the Jade Garden Restaurant.

On September 25, 2010, three scientists from the IOCB (Dr. Iva Pichová, Dr. Irena Valterová and Dr. Jan Konvalinka) paid visits to two other institutes of Chinese Academy of Sciences: Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology and Pasteur Institute, Shanghai. In both institutes, two short workshops took place with a short presentation of results from both Chinese and Czech side.