Syposium at American Chemical Society Meeting, Washington DC, Aug. 19-20, 2009: "Sensing and Destroying Chemical Warfare Agents and Pesticides"

Funds are requested to support the Symposium: "Sensing and Destroying Chemical Warfare Agents and Pesticides" to be held during the 238th American Chemical Society Meeting in Washington DC, August 19-20, 2009. This symposium will bring together 19 specifically-selected researchers from various governmental agencies, contracting companies, and academia. The objective will be to determine the latest developments related to the sensing, destruction, decontamination, detoxification and basic chemistry of nerve agents and related compounds. There will be a strong synergy between the fundamental new information presented and the needs and goals of the ARO for actual applications. This symposium will address several topics listed under ARO BAA Research Opportunity Number: W91 INF-07-R-0003-02, particularly under Research Area 7: Chemistry (Topic 7.3: Organic Chemistry and Organized Media, and Topic 7.5: Surfaces and Catalysis). The specific topics that will be discussed at the symposium include: Detection (Janda, Sailor, Swager), Destruction (Atwood, Brown, Durst, Klabunde, Kuo, Mitchell, Williams), Decontamination (Brevett, Wagner), Detoxification (Ghosh, Musilek), Biological Agents (Bevilacqua) and Fundamental Chemistry (Churchill, Creasy, McGarvey). Most of the presentations will address one or more of these topics and all will greatly increase the fundamental knowledge of the chemistry of CWAs. The primary outcome of this symposium will be to establish a fundamental understanding of the issues related to CWAs and to determine the state-of-the-art for each topic. This will indicate how the results may be applied to achieve ARO goals and guide future research in this area. The funds requested ($20,160) will be used to support the travel and housing costs of the non- governmental, non-industry, academic participants.