The end of the summer is near and many are already getting ready for the start of the new term. At Chemistry World we are looking forward to the new season – a time for renewal and revitalisation. Inspired by this, and to ensure we offer you the best possible product, we’d like to ask for some feedback. For the months of September and October, Chemistry World  will be running a survey to find out what you think about the magazine, the website and podcasts – and we’ll be giving away an iPod Nano to three lucky respondents. 

We hope you’ll take this opportunity to tell us what you really think – the good and the bad – because we can only make it the best possible publication by knowing what our readers want. You can take part at  by visiting our homepage.

September also sees the return of the Chemistry World Entrepreneur of the Year award. Run annually, this prize is now open to entrants from both within and outside the UK who have made a contribution to the commercialisation of research. Readers can now nominate themselves or others for this year’s award until 31 January 2011. 

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Prime candidates will be nominees who have established or contributed to the growth of a start-up company that is successfully commercialising chemistry-related research, those that have generated a promising intellectual property portfolio for the company, and individuals or companies that have generated new products that have been on the market for less than 2 years or are soon to become commercially available. More information about the awards vist the website. 

The winner will receive a trophy, certificate and a cheque for £4000. Additionally, they will be the subject of a feature article in a future issue of Chemistry World. Previous winners include: 

  • Hagan Bayley, Oxford Nanopore Technologies 

Bayley first became interested in membrane proteins during his PhD. More than 30 years later his laboratory is engineering membrane pores for stochastic sensing, the rapid screening of membrane proteins, the study of covalent chemistry at the single molecule level and ultra-rapid DNA sequencing. In 2005, he founded Oxford Nanopore to exploit the potential of stochastic sensing.  

  • Harren Jhoti, Astex Therapeutics 

Jhoti founded Astex, a drug discovery and development company that was set up at the very outset of a radical new approach to drug discovery using ’fragment’ technologies to develop novel small molecule and cancer therapeutics. Currently it is a well established company, accepted as a partner by pharmaceutical majors and attracting international acclaim. 

  • Ian Shott, Excelsyn  

After more than two decades in the fine chemicals industry Shott decided to start up on his own. Within 9 months he’d taken over two businesses and founded Excelsyn, providing specialist management consulting, and chemistry and engineering solutions for pharmaceuticals, biotech and the chemical sector. 

Bibiana Campos Seijo, editor