A student from the Department of Chemistry at NOVA FCT receives 2nd prize for best oral presentation in Germany

André Seco, a PhD student in NOVA FCT's Doctoral Programme in Chemistry and a member of the Associated Laboratory for Green Chemistry (LAQV-REQUIMTE), won 2nd prize for best oral communication at the 1st Training School of the LUCES COST Action: How to develop a sensor? Academic Approaches vs. Industrial Interests, which took place at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, in Germany, from the 18^th until the 20^th of September.

The award-winning presentation, entitled “Fluorescent heterowheel pseudo-rotaxanes for sensing applications: Towards new supramolecular chemosensors for indicator displacement assays”, focuses on the development of supramolecular devices, that is, devices made up of multiple molecules interacting between themselves) for the detection of different analytes (substances to be analyzed). This structure, belonging to the rotaxane family (structures resembling wheels around axles), is distinguished by the presence of several macrocycles, the "wheels," attached to the same axis, with each macrocycle having a different affinity for each analyte. This difference in affinities allows for distinct responses, enabling the identification and quantification of substances of interest for medical diagnostics or environmental monitoring systems.

This work was supervised by professors Nuno Basílio (main supervisor), António Jorge Parola and Fernando Pina (co-supervisors), all researchers at LAQV-REQUIMTE.