Southampton shares in major international grant for computational chemistry
University of Southampton computational chemists Jonathan Essex and Chris Skylaris are part of an international consortium that aims to further research into the development of new ways to run larger and more accurate simulations of large bio molecules and other materials.
This research could eventually help scientists come up with innovations in drug discovery and new sustainable fuels.
The grant "Development and Deployment of Chemical Software for Advanced Potential Energy Surfaces" worth £560,000 for Southampton, is from the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States. The University of Edinburgh leads the consortium, which involves scientists from several areas within computational chemistry, developing software to tackle complex chemical problems across multiple length and time-scales, from leading universities on both sides of the Atlantic.
Chris and Jonathan were invited to take part in an initial workshop at Oxford in June 2011 aimed at exploring collaborations to develop software as part of the ‘Grand Challenges in Chemistry' initiative.
"Our aim will be to develop robust and sustainable software that can be used in future research," explains Chris. "The consortium brings together chemists with different specialisms to address the challenge."
Two postdoctoral researchers will be employed to work on the three year project at Southampton.
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Professor Jonathan W Essex BA (MA) DPhil
Professor Jonathan W Essex is Professor of Computational Systems Chemistry within Chemistry at the University of Southampton.
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Professor Chris-Kriton Skylaris MChem, PhD, FRSC, FHEA
Chris-Kriton Skylaris is Professor of Computational Chemistry at the University of Southampton.
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