Subject: CCG Congratulates the Ten Winners of the Spring 2003 CCG Excellence Awards

From: "Katie Rodgers" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 11:21:53 -0500

MONTREAL, January 9, 2003  - Today Chemical Computing Group (CCG) together with the American Chemical Society's (ACS) Division of Computers in Chemistry (COMP) announced the latest winners of the CCG Excellence Awards to be presented at the Spring 2003 ACS National Meeting in New Orleans.  Due to the overwhelming response, CCG has increased its sponsorship of the contest from five award winners to ten.  The awards will be presented on Tuesday, March 25 at the Computers in Chemistry poster session, which begins at 6pm

The contest was created to stimulate graduate student participation at ACS National Meetings in COMP division poster sessions and symposia and has been effective in doing so.  "The growth in response to this contest since its inception is very gratifying.  Not only did we double the number of awards presented, but the submissions received multiplied substantially.  The contest is intended to encourage interaction between scientists and the competing students, which is beneficial to these future computational chemists.  CCG will continue to work with COMP to help facilitate this exchange of information," said Pamela Newton, Director of Sales and Marketing at CCG.  

Winners were chosen based upon the quality and significance of the research presented as well as the strength of the supporting materials.  The COMP executive committee had a difficult task of judging, as competition was fierce due to the quantity and quality of entries.  The following winners will receive a one-year software license for CCG's MOE -The Molecular Operating Environment and reimbursement for travel costs to attend an ACS meeting to present their research:

AIKENS, Christine (Ms.)
Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University

Molecular Electronic Structure and Magnetic Properties of Y2Ti(?-X)2TiY2(X,Y=H,F,Cl,Br) Isomers

Advisor - Mark S. Gordon, Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University

BUCHETE, Nicolae-Viorel (Mr.)
Department of Chemistry, Boston University

The Effect of Relative Side Chain Orientations on the Ability of Statistical Potentials to Identify Native-Like Structures of Proteins

Advisor - John E. Straub, Boston University

CUI, Guanglei (Mr.)

Department of Chemistry, SUNY at Stony Brook

The Complicated Folding of a Simple Peptide Studied by Multiple Folding Simulations and Replica Exchange Approach

Advisor - Carlos Simmerling, Department of Chemistry, SUNY at Stony Brook

DONG, Haitao (Mr.)

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Oklahoma

Quasiharmonic Vibrations of Water, Water Clusters, and Liquid Water from Principal Component Analysis of Quantum or QM/MM Trajectories

Advisor - Ralph A. Wheeler, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The

University of Oklahoma

IVANOV, Ivaylo N. (Mr.)

Center for Molecular Modeling and Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania

Relative pKs from First Principles Molecular Dynamics:  The Case of Histidine Deprotonation

Advisor - Michael L. Klein, Director and Hepburn Professor of Physical Science,

University of Pennsylvania

KATT, William B. (Mr.)

Department of Chemistry, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Optimization of Molecular Properties Through Structural Mutation and Virtual Screening with QSAR Models

Advisor - Curt M. Breneman, Department of Chemistry, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

KORMOS, Bethany (Ms.)
Department of Chemistry, University of Minnesota

Utilizing Density Functional Theory to Study Nucleophilic Substitution Reactions:  Optimization of an Adiabatic Connection Method and its Application

Advisor - Christopher J. Cramer, Department of Chemistry, University of Minnesota

STROCKBINE, Bentley (Mr.)
Department of Pharmacological Sciences, Stony Brook University

Advances in Structure Prediction Techniques
Advisor - Carlos Simmerling, Department of Chemistry, SUNY at Stony Brook

WU, Min (Ms.)

Department of Chemistry, New York University

Structural Studies of an Environmental Carcinogen within a Y Family Bypass DNA Polymerase

Advisor - Suse Broyde, Department of Biology, New York University

ZHOU, Zhigang (Mr.)

Department of Chemistry, Duquesne University

Resistant Effect Exploring of HIV-1 RT Mutation by Molecular Dynamics
Advisor - Jeffrey D. Madura, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Duquesne

University

Applications for the next round will be accepted soon.  Previous winners are welcome to enter.  An application must be submitted to the Treasurer of the COMP.  Then an abstract must be submitted through the ACS OASYS system for online paper submissions prior to the deadline.  Visit http://membership.acs.org/C/COMP/CCG/ccg.html for further information.

Chemical Computing Group Inc. is a leading provider of computational applications aimed at the drug discovery and design marketplace.  CCG's flagship product is the award winning Molecular Operating Environment (MOE), which offers visualization, simulation, and methodology development in one package.  MOE provides an integrated suite of powerful, yet intuitive chemistry software tools for HTS, Structure Based Design, Molecular modeling and Protein and Homology modeling as well as an embedded programming language for the rapid prototyping of scientific methods.  Biologists, medicinal chemists, and computational chemists use MOE in pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, and universities worldwide.

CCG is based in Montreal, Canada, with offices in Lörrach, Germany and Cambridge, UK.  For more information, please visit our website http://www.chemcomp.com.  Send E-mail inquiries to [email-masked].