Foreword to the Proceedings of the 12th National Symposium of Organic Chemistry "Dr. Eduardo Guerreiro", Los Cocos (Córdoba), Argentina, 14-17 November 1999

It is our pleasure to introduce this special issue of Molecules which consists of the Proceedings of the XII National Symposium of Organic Chemistry (XII SINAQO) "Dr. Eduardo Guerreiro", held on November 14-17 in Los Cocos (Córdoba), Argentina. The conference attracted more than 300 participants from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela.

The scientific program started with a plenary lecture given by Dr. A. Douglas Kinghorn (U.S.A.) entitled "Plant Secondary Metabolites as Potential Anticancer Agents and Cancer Chemopreventives". In addition, there were five plenary lectures given by Dr. Michael Chanon (France): "Experimental and Theoretical Studies on the Mechanism of Grignard Reagents Formation"; Dr. Vicente Gotor (Spain): "Enzimas en Disolventes Orgánicos: Uso de Lipasas y (R)- Oxinitrilasa para la Preparación de Productos de Interés Biológico"; Dr. Juan Garbarino (Chile): "Química del Género Calceolaria, Aspectos Estructurales y Biológicos"; Dr. Waldemar Priebe (U.S.A.): "Targeting DNA with Anthracyclines: The Importance of Sugar Moiety"; and Dr. Robert Dodd (France): "Aziridine Carboxylates, Carboxamides and Lactones: New Methods for their Preparation and their Transformation α and β Amino Acid Derivatives". In addition there were six Invited Lecturers and 252 posters were presented in four sessions.

The purpose of this Conference is to bring together renowned scientists, researchers and students in order to reflect upon recent advances in Organic Chemistry. The meeting offered a strong representation of all the disciplines: Organic Spectroscopy (10 posters); Physical Organic Chemistry (62 posters); Natural Products and Bioorganic Chemistry (69 posters); Organometallic Chemistry (10 posters) and Synthetic Organic Chemistry (100 posters).

It has been a real challenge for us to organize and edit this issue as it is the first time that the material presented at The National Symposium of Organic Chemistry (SINAQO) is published as a Proceedings volume. We are strongly convinced that this Special Issue will increase and improve the diffusion of the research in Organic Chemistry carried out in South America, and particularly in Argentina. Thus, we are very grateful to the Organizing Committee for promoting the publication in Molecules, and last but not least, to all the participants who contributed with their research work to the success of this task.

Sincerely,

Dr. Guillermo R. Labadie
Dr. Claudio J. Salomon
Guest editors
February, 2000