Seminar Title:
From Synthesis of Heterocyclic Compounds to in silico Evaluation of Phytochemicals Active against the Corona Virus

Profile:

Evelyn C. Creencia (ECC) graduated from Niigata University, Japan in 2010 with the degree of Doctor of Science (Organic Synthesis of Heterocyclic Compounds). She finished her BS Chemistry in the Mindanao State University – Marawi (MSU-Marawi) and her MS Chemistry in the University of the Philippines – Diliman (UP-Diliman). Presently, she is a Professor of Chemistry at the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology where she established the Organic Synthesis Laboratory. She is active in research and is part of the Synthesis Team of the Department of Science and Technology - Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (DOST PCHRD) Discovery and Development of Health Products (DDHP) program. She is also involved in biowastes valorization and molecular docking projects. She has published articles of her research works in international peer reviewed journals indexed in Scopus and the Web of Science. She has been awarded the 2021 Outstanding Filipino JSPS Fellow in the field of Chemistry. ECC is a registered Patent Agent. Aside from being an active teacher, mentor, and researcher, ECC has also handled several administrative posts in the Institute.

Seminar Title:
Responsive Chemistry Enabling On Demand Biomolecular Interactions

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Prof. Po-Chiao Lin received his Ph.D. from Taiwan International Graduate Program (Academia Sinica) in 2008 with Prof. Chun-Cheng Lin. In 2010, he completed a post-doctoral appointment with Prof. Herbert Waldmann at Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Physiology (Dortmund, Germany) and was appointed as assistant professor of organic chemistry at National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU). He is now a full professor of organic chemistry with research interests in organic synthesis, organometallic catalysis, and biomedical technology. Prof. Lin is currently the Vice President for academic affairs at NSYSU.

Seminar Title:
Preparation and characterization of composites with end-tethered polymer chains

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David P. Penaloza Jr. obtained his BS Chemistry from the Central Luzon State University (Philippines). He then pursued his PhD in Polymer Chemistry degree from the University of Connecticut (USA) through the Ford Foundation International Fellowship Program (Ford-IFP) which he finished in 2011. His doctoral research under the mentorship of Prof. Thomas AP Seery focused on the preparation and characterization of clay-based polymer nanocomposites prepared via surface-initiated polymerization. Then he moved to Kyushu University (Japan) to do a postdoc where he worked with Prof. Keiji Tanaka carrying out structure-property relation studies of self-assembled systems.

Dr. Penaloza is currently a professor at De La Salle University (DLSU), Philippines. Interests in his research group at DLSU (www.penalozalab.weebly.com) are focused towards the studies of structure-property relations of soft matter and complex fluids.

Seminar Title:
Learning from Nature: Unravelling the role of electrons and photons in fuel-forming reactions

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Vincent obtained his DPhil from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. After enjoying different cultures and wines in Canada and Sweden as a post-doctoral research fellow respectively, he felt it was about time to taste hometown-brewed beers again. He moved back to Taiwan and started his own research group at NSYSU in 2021. His research interests cover artificial photosynthesis, photocatalysis, electrocatalysis and bioinorganic chemistry. For more information, please visit www.teamvw.org

Seminar Title:
Mass Transport Acceleration in Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction through Laser-Activated Silver-Iron Oxide Heterojunction on Graphene

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Joey graduated both his bachelor (with honors) and master degrees in chemistry at De La Salle University, Manila. He is currently a senior PhD student at the Department of Chemistry, National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, under the supervision of Prof. Chun-Hu Chen. His current research focuses on the synthesis of metal oxides and composites in line with developing improvements on electrocatalysis, specifically on oxygen evolution (OER) and oxygen reduction (ORR) for possible fuel cell and water splitting applications. He is also interested in deepening the understanding of the synergies within the heterojunction interfaces, as well as multimetal oxides.

Profile:

Hsuan-Hung Liao finished his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry (2016) at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, through DAAD Scholarship, under the guidance of Prof. Magnus Rueping. He was also a recipient of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship and became a postdoctoral researcher (2017-2019) at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom, under the guidance of Prof. Varinder Aggarwal. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry, National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU).

Seminar Title:
Nitroxide Polymer Brushes for Thin-Film Cathodes in Organic Radical Batteries

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Dr. Lee received his PhD degree in Chemistry from National Tsing Hua University (2001). He was a researcher at Industrial Technology Research Institute (2001-2006) and a post-doctoral research associate at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2006-2008). He became Assistant Processor (2008) and Associate Professor (2012) in the Department of Chemistry, National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan. Now, he is Professor and Chairman. His research focuses on lithium-ion batteries and polymer chemistry.

Seminar Title:
Combating the White Plague: In Silico-Guided Drug Design and Microwave-Assisted Synthesis of Quinoline-4-Carboxylic Acid Derivatives as New Anti-tubercular Agents

Profile:

Mark Tristan Quimque is a faculty member and researcher at the Department of Chemistry, Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT), Iligan City, Philippines. Currently, he is a PhD in Chemistry candidate at the University of Santo Tomas (UST). His research interests are along the fields of Organic Synthesis and Computational Chemistry, particularly with applications on drug design and discovery. During his stay at UST, he has been a three-time recipient of the Albertus Magnus Award for excellence in research. Currently, he has been working on synthetic and computational approaches to bioactive natural product structures and derivatives and has published a number of research papers at high impact journals (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jMPQYqwAAAAJ&hl=en).

Seminar Title:
Simple Deposition and Novel Crumpled Graphene

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Dr. Chen is currently a Professor of Chemistry at National Sun Yat-sen University. He received his B.S. degree in chemistry from Soochow University in 2000, M.S. from National Chung Cheng University in 2002, and PhD. from University of Connecticut in 2010. He conducted his post-doctoral research until 2012 at Ohio State University in material science and engineering. His research interests are in materials chemistry: from synthesis, characterization, to applications. His recent focus is applying graphene materials and semiconductor metal oxides to clean energy storage.

Seminar Title:
Chemistry Innovations for Development in Energy and Environment

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Dr. Cid-Andres’ research is focused on analytical chemistry applied to environmental technology, renewable energy, isotope techniques and biogeochemistry. She obtained her Doctor of Science in Chemistry from Kyoto University, Japan, her Master of Science in Chemistry from UP Diliman and her Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. Dr. Cid-Andres has headed and co-led the Department of Science and Technology (DOST)- Philippine Council for the Energy Emerging Technology Research and Development (PCIEERD) projects “Scoping Study to Identify Key Environmental Problems in Valenzuela City” and “Novel Material as Anode and Cathode Electrode for Power Generator Al-Air Reactor”, respectively. She also is the Principal Investigator for the project “Optimizing sampling devices and procedures to quantify sources of metals and microplastics in water resources” funded by Kyoto University Institute for Chemical Research, Japan. Currently, she is the program leader for the DOST Niche Center in the Region for Research and Development (NICER) “Center for Environmental Technologies and Compliance” and project leader for the “Synergistic Air and Water Quality Sensing System with Purification Devices using Local Materials for MSMEs”.

Seminar Title:
Direct synthesis of oxaspirolactones via photo- and heterogeneous bronsted acid catalysis cascade

Profile:

Shinje Miñoza finished his B.S. (2017) and M.S.(2019) degrees at Mindanao State University– Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT), Philippines under Prof. Dr. Evelyn C. Creencia. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Chemistry, National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU), Taiwan (ROC). His research focuses on the development of newa symmetric methodologies under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Hsuan-Hung Liao

Profile:

Prof Cheng-chau Chiu obtained this BSc, MSc and PhD from the Technische Universität München, Germany, in 2008, 2010, and 2015, respectively. After graduation, he worked as a postdoc at the Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, before joining the faculty of the Department of Chemistry in 2020. Prof Chiu combines quantum chemical calculations with kinetic and thermodynamic modeling to study chemical reactions and phenomena of interest.

Seminar Title:
Carnosine: An Approach to Treatment and Prevention of Diabetes

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Charlie Lavilla Jr is currently working as Associate Professor in Chemistry at the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSUIIT). Charlie recently received his PhD in Biomedical Science at Nottingham Trent University (NTU), UK and worked in the Turner Laboratory under the Centre for Diabetes, Chronic Diseases and Ageing in NTU through the Newton Agham Programme of the British Council and the Philippines’ Department of Science and Technology. He explored the biochemical properties of carnosine as potential low-cost food supplementation strategy to help treat or prevent muscle damage in people with diabetes and other lifestyle diseases. Charlie is currently active in seeking and establishing potential partners from public and private sectors in the Philippines for possible collaborative research project(s) that will be conducted in his home institution. He hopes that along with other diabetes research initiatives in the country, a financially accessible and more effective heath system that is targeted to those at high-risk of diabetes or are in pre-diabetes stage could be developed. Thus, Charlie’s research goal is to develop initiatives that provide therapeutic strategies that are more effective, safe, and accessible to the poorer societies, thereby helping alleviate the escalating human and financial cost of diabetes.

Seminar Title:
Development Towards more Atom-Economical Peptide Synthesis

Profile:

Prof. Lin was educated for most of her life in the UK. She has wide variety of interests from different areas. Inspired by her high school chemistry teacher, she decided to specialize in chemistry. She completed both her MChem degree and DPhil in Organic Chemistry in at the Chemistry Department at University of Oxford under the supervision of Prof. Ben Davis. During her DPhil studies, she worked on developing olefin metathesis for the selective chemical modification on proteins. In 2014, she took up a position as assistant professor at the Chemistry Department of National Sun Yat-sen University. Her research interests include developing new peptide ligation methods and applying these methods in the synthesis of biologically active peptides as well as synthesizing novel functional nanoparticles and polymers.

Seminar Title:
Strategy Development toward Nickel-Catalyzed Functionalization of 3-Substituted Azabicyclo[1.1.0]butane

Profile:

Radyn Vanessa Phaz P. Tapales, under the guidance of Dr. Evelyn C. Creencia, completed her M.S. (2019) in Chemistry at Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT), Philippines. She is currently a Ph.D. student at National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU), Taiwan (ROC), in the Department of International Ph.D. Program for Science. Under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Hsuan-Hong Liao, her research focuses on the development of new methods for the synthesis of azabicyclo[1.1.0]butane and its application.

Seminar Title:
Learning from Nature: Unravelling the role of electrons and photons in fuel-forming reactions

Profile:

Vincent obtained his DPhil from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. After enjoying different cultures and wines in Canada and Sweden as a post-doctoral research fellow respectively, he felt it was about time to taste hometown-brewed beers again. He moved back to Taiwan and started his own research group at NSYSU in 2021. His research interests cover artificial photosynthesis, photocatalysis, electrocatalysis and bioinorganic chemistry. For more information, please visit www.teamvw.org