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Lindau 2006: Picture Collection

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56th Meeting of Nobel Laureates
18th Meeting in Chemistry

June 25th - 30th 2006
Lindau, Lake Constance, Bavaria

I was honoured to attend the 18th Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Chemistry among 530 students and young researchers. Here I would like to give you some information about the meeting, and present you some photos showing unforgettable impressions from the meeting.

Undoubtely, the most important participants of the conference are the Nobel Laureates.

Group photo (lindau-nobel.de)
(picture from http://www.lindau-nobel.de)

The following laureates attended the 18th Meeting in Chemistry:

(by following the links you can find out more about the Laureates on www.nobelprize.org)
Name Country Year Awarded...
Prof. Dr. Peter Agre USA 2003 (Ch) "for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes",
"for the discovery of water channels"
Prof. Dr. Werner Arber Switzer-
land
1978 (Ch) "for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics"
Prof. Dr. Aaron Ciechanover Israel 2004 (Ch) "for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation"
Prof. Dr. Paul Crutzen Nether-
lands
1995 (Ch) "for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone"
Prof. Dr. Robert F. Curl USA 1996
(Ch)
"for their discovery of fullerenes"
Prof. Dr. Johann  Deisenhofer Germany 1988
(Ch)
"for the determination of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre"
Prof. Dr. Richard R. Ernst Switzer-
land
1991
(Ch)
"for his contributions to the development of the methodology of high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy"
Prof. Dr. Roy Glauber USA 2005
(Phy)
"for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence"
Prof. Dr. Theodor Hänsch Germany 2005
(Phy)
"for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique"
Prof. Dr. John L. Hall USA 2005
(Phy)
"for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique"
Prof. Dr. Roald  Hoffmann USA 1981
(Ch)
"for their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions"
Prof. Dr. Robert Huber Germany 1988
(Ch)
"for the determination of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre"
Prof. Dr. Jerome Karle USA 1985
(Ch)
"for their outstanding achievements in the development of direct methods for the determination of crystal structures"
Prof. Dr. Walter Kohn USA 1998
(Ch)
"for his development of the density-functional theory"
Prof. Dr. William N. Lipscomb USA 1976
(Ch)
"for his studies on the structure of boranes illuminating problems of chemical bonding"
Prof. Dr. Rudolph A. Marcus USA 1992
(Ch)
"for his contributions to the theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems"
Prof. Dr. Hartmut Michel Germany 1998
(Ch)
"for the determination of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre"
Prof. Dr. Erwin Neher Germany 1991
(Med)
"for their discoveries concerning the function of single ion channels in cells"
Prof. Dr. Ryoji Noyori Japan 2001
(Ch)
"for their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions"
Prof. Dr. Sherwood F. Rowland USA 1995
(Ch)
"for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone"
Prof. Dr. Richard R. Schrock USA 2005
(Ch)
"for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis"
Prof. Dr. John E. Walker Great Britain 1997
(Ch)
"for their elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)"
Prof. Dr. Kurt  Wüthrich Switzer-
land
2002
(Ch)
"for the development of methods for identification and structure analyses of biological macromolecules" / "for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution"
(Please note that many of the Laureates have won the Nobel prize together with other Laureates, who are not listed here)

As you can learn from the table, almost every subject area was represented by one or more Laureates. Fortunately, many lectures affected the fields of biochemistry, physical chemistry, imaging and spectroscopy, my own fields of interest.

About 530 students and young researchers were elected from approximately 11,000 nominated candidates. A list of participating students and young researchers could be found at: http://www.lindau-nobel.de/content/view/268/118/.

On Sunday, June 25th, the conference was started by an opening ceremony at 5 pm. Speeches were held by Countess Sonja Bernadotte and among others by Dr. Annette Shavan. The speeches are available from  http://www.lindau-nobel.de/content/category/25/79/64/ . The ceremony was accompanied by music provided by Slovakian violin prodigy Ondrej Jánoska and Ukrainian Jeanne Mikitka on the piano. Sunday night, the American delegation hosted a dinner to get to know young researchers from about 25 different countries.

From Monday to Thursday, in the morning different lectures were held by the laureates, each of the lectures took about 30 minutes or more...The lectures were recorded and are available from: http://www.lindau-nobel.de/content/view/294/125/. The abstracts are available here. In the afternoon, young researchers could share discussions with the laureates regarding to the subjects of their lectures or affecting aspects of science and society or simply the daily life of a highly honoured scientist.

Lectures
Lecture held by Prof. Michel
Lectures
Lecture held by Prof. Ciechanover
Discussion with Prof. Wuthrich (source: lindau-nobel.de)
Discussion with Prof. Wüthrich: he is explaning NMR and protein folding with assistance of his belt.

On Monday night, all young researchers were invited for dinner with the laureates and the guests of honour. By sitting at table with the Laureates, young researchers could talk to them in a relaxed atmosphere. Female young researchers also got the chance to dance with the laureates at the famous Polonaise. Actually, I avoided to dance, because I want to come back to Lindau at a later date...

Get together
Suzanne and Jack from Australia
Get together
Hwee Ying from Malaysia and Thiago from Brazil
Get together
Prof. Sir John E. Walker and myself

On Wednesday night, all participants enjoyed a concert of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, playing Mozart, Stravinsky and Haydn.

Finally, on Friday all participants attended a boat trip from Lindau to the Island of Mainau, where the farewell ceremony took place. After a walk through the famous gardens and the butterfly house, we went back to Lindau.

Lindau harbor
...on the boat still in Lindau harbor
Butterfly house
in the butterfly house

On Saturday I had to bid farewell to so many people I met on the conference. While taking my short trip back to Tuebingen, I had to remember all the people who have to travel more than 24 hours back to their homes.

I would like to thank all the people who made the Meeting of Nobel Laureates possible and also the people who worked behind the scenes to secure a smooth run of the conference. I also want to give a great thank to the "Professor-Rhein-Stiftung", which made the participation possible for me.

And last but not least I want to greet all students and young researchers I had the chance to meet for having fruitful discussions and a nice get-together in Lindau.

Lindau harbor

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© 2004, Martin Thunemann :: webmaster@thunemann.de
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