The World at WU

    Organized on the 28th and 29th of March as part of the 1st Walailak Research Convention 2022 (WRC 2022), a virtual hybrid symposium workshop on functional molecular materials attracted a number of international scholars and guests virtually joining from all over the world such as Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippine, Hongkong, Australia, New Zealand, India, Iran, and France. 

    The conference includes both two seminar sessions: Frontier Research in Molecular Materials, and Design and Discovery of Functional Molecular Materials, and a workshop on Solving and Refining in OLEX2 - the world's most popular crystallographic package for small-molecule crystallography. Giving keynote speeches were Prof. Jack Clegg from the University of Queensland, Australia, Prof. Shane Telfer from Massey University, New Zealand, Dr. David Turner from Monash University, Australia, and Dr. Pinit Kidkhunthod from Synchrotron Light Research Institute, Thailand. 

    Assoc. Prof. Dr. David Harding, Lecturer, and Researcher at the Center of Excellence for Functional Materials and Nanotechnology said that the conference was focused on lots of complexes for functional molecular materials around us, possessing unparalleled uniqueness. As for the workshop participants were trained in structure refinement helping to projector three-dimensional structures of very small molecules. 

    The conference aimed to serve younger researchers and establish a collaborative researcher network for future idea-sharing. Regarding participation, besides the field professionals, students actively participated by asking questions and got training on software operations to solve and refine the structure. 

    “The fun part was when some of the participants got to enjoy the beach because it was their first visit to Nakhon Si Thammarat”, said Assoc. Prof. Dr. David. 
 
     The conference succeeded in updating field professionals and researchers on the current state of functional molecular materials. Thailand’s present progress has far exceeded its past state in terms of the production of high-quality research. 

     Regarding the future trend of functional molecular material, scientists around the world are looking into molecules. Various types of medicine we use are molecular in nature and the odd is that molecular materials will be increasing applicability in our modern world producing more materials against environmental pollution and other issues. It is the time molecules have taken a transition from a lab bench to an actual working device. Assoc. Prof. Dr. David Harding said that considering the pandemic would have died down, next year’s fully on-site conference will be in session with more speakers invited.  

News by Nootchanat Sukkaew 

Center for Division of Corporate Communication