The 13th IUPAC International Symposium on Organometallic Chemistry Directed Towards Organic Synthesis (OMCOS-13<http://omcos13.unige.ch/>) was held in Geneva, Switzerland, from 17-21 July 2005.The aim of this series of symposia is to bring together chemists from academia and industry to define and discuss the most recent developments in the areas of catalysis, new organometallic reagents and reactions, and new materials chemistry. In 2001, Sharpless, Noyori, and Knowles received the Nobel Prize for their work in this area of chemistry; and the high profile has been maintained by the award of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Chauvin, Grubbs, and Schrock for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis.OMCOS-13 had a record number of nearly 1200 participants from 41 countries, and there was an encouragingly high proportion of young scientists in attendance. Very strong Asian participation at this conference reflected the outstanding level of research and leadership in this field from countries such as Japan, China, South Korea, and Taiwan.Prof. Shengming Ma, from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Science and the Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University, China received the OMCOS-13 Award (sponsored by the Yen Chuang Foundation and Springer Verlag). The prize was awarded for his creative research contributions in the field of transition-metal-catalyzed reactions of allenes.Apart from the OMCOS-13 Award lecture, there were 23 plenary lectures and 20 oral communications that dealt with aspects of reactivity and chemoselectivity of main group and transition-metal organometallics. Stereoselectivity issues also figured prominently with a particular emphasis on asymmetric synthesis and catalysis. Mechanistic insights, new reagents for synthesis, new catalyst and ligand design, and ligand effects were other important topics.The quality of the 620 posters that were on display during the entire conference was also outstanding. This extraordinary poster session was highlighted with the Monday evening "poster party" and culminated in the awarding of 37 poster prizes.OMCOS-13 was held as a single session conference in an impressive lecture theater and a large exhibition area in the center of Geneva at a superb lakefront location. It was a fitting venue for the firstclass science that was presented.Thirty-seven lecturers of OMCOS-13 present their chemistry in this issue of Pure and Applied Chemistry and provide a fine recollection of last summer's conference. The 14th edition of OMCOS will be held in Nara, Japan (2-6 August 2007) under the chairmanship of Prof. Koichiro Oshima.Alexandre AlexakisOMCOS-13 Co-chairE. Peter KündigOMCOS-13 Co-chair
Solid acids and their use as environmentally friendly catalysts in organic synthesis
