About 100 chemists from around the world will be at Brock this week for the 14th Symposium on the Latest Trends in Organic Synthesis (LTOS-14).

Held every two years, the symposium began in Blacksburg, Virginia in 1984. It was organized by Brock chemist Tomas Hudlicky (then at Virginia Tech), Dennis Liotta from Emory University and George Majetich from the University of Georgia as a forum to enhance the visibility of synthetic organic chemists from the south. It has since grown to be internationally recognized.

The speakers will include Nobel Prize winner Robert Grubbs from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who was honoured in 2005 for developing the metathesis method. He will speak about the subject on Saturday.

This year’s symposium, scheduled for Aug. 11 to 14, will be the fourth held in Niagara. Speakers are from universities and companies that include Merck & Co., Pfizer, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Queen’s University, the University of Ottawa and the University of Vienna.