Vol. 33 No. 2
March-April 2011

Polymer Synthesis

by Petr Vlček

Participants at the 74th PMM Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, July 2010.

The Prague Meetings on Macromolecules (PMM), held 18–22 July 2010, was the 74th in the long series of conferences organized since 1967 by the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The meetings are themed events, addressing academic and industrial researchers in the specific field of polymer science.

Conference topics were as follows:

• controlled and living polymerization, including ionic and radical processes, “click” chemistry
• modifications of polymers, reactions on polymers, reactive and functionalized polymers
• polymers from natural sources, modifications of naturalpolymers using controlled processes, novel materials
• polymers for special use in bioapplications and technology
• ordered and hybrid polymer systems, multicomponent polymer systems
• synthesis of polymers for photonics and
  electronics

The 90 attendees from 22 countries presented 7 keynote lectures, 28 special lectures, and 47 poster communications. The keynote lectures were delivered by the following top scientists:

• Christopher Barner-Kowollik, University of Karlsruhe, Germany
• Virgil Percec, University of Pennsylvania, USA
• Roderic P. Quirk, University of Akron, USA
• Mitsuo Sawamoto, Kyoto University, Japan
• Lawrence R. Sita, University of Maryland, USA
• Yasuyuki Tezuka, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
• Yusuf Yagci, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey

Krivoklat Castle.

In addition to the keynote lectures, a number of interesting oral and poster contributions were presented by leading scientists, but also by young researchers and students, documenting the interest among young people in synthetic polymer chemistry. The program was run in one session in one lecture room with thematically different blocks and with two poster sessions.

During the opening ceremony, the institute director and conference chair welcomed the participants and informed them of the organization details. Mitsuo Sawamoto, as the IUPAC representative, gave an introduction to IUPAC and its activities.

The next PMM conference will be held in the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry on July 2011 and will be focused on conductive polymers.

Petr Vlček <[email protected]> is a senior scientist in the Department of Controlled Macromolecular Synthesis, Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry in Prague.