Peking University, Beijing, April 13, 2010: In celebration of the centennial of Peking University’s College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering in May, three world renown journals, Advanced Materials, Coordination Chemistry Reviews, and Chemistry － An Asian Journal, and the national professional journal of physics and chemistry, Acta Psysico-Chimica Sinica, published special academic issues one after another to comprehensively introduce the latest academic achievements of PKU in chemistry and materials science. Their acts show that Peking University, or even the whole chemistry circle in China, is playing an increasingly influential role in the world. Of course, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Science and Technology contributed to all these accomplishments as an important driving force for innovative fundamental research.
As a pioneer in Chinese chemistry education and scientific research, the College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering has a history of one hundred years. The publication of special academic issues by these three famous academic journals reflects that the college has gradually become an internationally influential institute of chemistry education and research.
Advanced Materials is a prestigious academic journal in the field of materials science. Its special issue is the third one, after those by the Institute of Chemistry and the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Science, to introduce scientific achievements of an institute in mainland China in materials science. The issue includes two summaries, four newsletters, and seven academic rapid reports, presenting the College’s latest research results in the study of fullerenes and carbon nanotubes, molecular magnets, efficient fluorescent materials, organic field-effect transistors, rare earth nano-catalytic materials, and metalloporphyrin photoconductive materials, and the noticeable progress in soft and hard template synthesis, plasma-assisted synthesis, and thermite reaction synthesis etc of nano-materials.
Coordination Chemistry Reviews is one of the most powerful academic review journals in the area of theoretic and bio-inorganic chemistry, and organometallic chemistry. It is the first time that it has published a special issue for a mainland research institute. The issue covers fifteen review papers, ranging over various topics: rare earth nano-structure synthesis of coordination chemistry, coordination supramolecular assembly, single-chain molecule magnets, double metal composite rare-earth fluorescent materials, crystal polymer film, transition metal nano-catalysis and green chemistry, nano-materials and structures of the electrochemical and solution-phase synthesis method, synthesis of special organic and metal organic compounds, charge transfer complexes and its information storage, carbon nanotube composites and molecular electronic devices, flexible solar cells etc.
Chemistry － An Asian Journal is a high-level Asian chemistry journal founded in 2006. Its first editor-in-chief was a winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Ryoji Noyori, and Chinese Chemical Society was one of its early founders. It is also the first time for this journal to celebrate the anniversary of a research institute with a special issue. There are altogether fourteen papers–six thematic reviews, two newsletters, and two academic papers–in the issue, mainly dealing with the topic of organic and polymer synthesis and chemical biology: transition metal catalyzed aromatization and cycloaddition, selective hydrogenolysis, near-infrared organic compounds, control of polymer topology, chiral shift, DNA conformational switch visualization, enzyme kinetics, and molecular electronic devices etc.
In addition, the national professional journal of physics and chemistry, Acta Psysico-Chimica Sinica, also published a special issue, including fifty papers by teachers, students, former students, and visitor professors of PKU.
Advanced Materials and Acta Psysico-Chimica Sinica both adopt the image of PKU on their covers. All four special issues also indicate its purpose of celebrating the centennial of the College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering of Peking University on their covers. These special issues have different focuses but relate closely to each other, comprehensively introducing the latest academic achievements of PKU in core chemistry, chemical biology and materials science, and showing that Peking University, or even the whole chemistry circle in China, is playing an increasingly influential role in the world. These great accomplishments benefited from the increasing financial support of our country in basic research. There are 29 winners of the Outstanding Youth Fund of National Natural Science Foundation of China, eleven winners of B-Class Outstanding Youth Fund, three innovative research groups in the College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering of Peking University. It also has fifteen distinguished professors, two professors of “Chang Jiang Scholars Program”, three groups of “Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University”. The College has hosted or participated in over twenty projects supported by the 973 Program and there are four chief scientists in the program. The National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Science and Technology contributed to all these accomplishments as an important driving force for innovative fundamental research.
The College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering of Peking University was originally the Gezhi College of Chemistry of the Imperial Capital University, which was the earliest academic institute of chemistry education and research. After a century, the college has become the cradle of chemistry intellectuals and the most important institute for scientific research, and has cultivated a large number of outstanding students. There are 201 faculty members in the College now, including nine academicians of the Academic Divisions of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 55 professors and 61 associate professors. The College has a comprehensive range of disciplines, and five being of inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, polymer chemistry and physics, organic chemistry and analytical chemistry etc have been for many years appointed as National Key Disciplines by the Ministry of Education, which is very unique in the whole university. The College also has two State Key Laboratories and three Key Laboratories of the Ministry. And it founded Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences with Institute of Chemistry Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is becoming an influential research institute of chemistry in the world.
Translated by: PAN Huanming
Edited by: Jennifer Yan
Source: PKU News (Chinese)
