Rediscovering Boston for the ACS 240th National Meeting

Growing up in West Hartford, Conn., I lived about halfway between Boston and New York City. The drive was about an hour and 45 minutes to Boston and two and half-hours to Manhattan. About 90 percent of the time I chose the longer trip because I loved New York. I loved Broadway and the New York rye bread and the excitement.

Then, many years later I attended a meeting in Boston and by the second day, I realized what a mistake I had made. Boston, too, is a great town! As we start work for the American Chemical Society’s 240th National Meeting in Boston, some neat memories come back to me… 

First, of course, there’s the fresh lobster. Then, there are the historical sites:  The Freedom Trail, The North Church, Paul Revere’s House, and many more attractions. And then there’s Fenway Park, the home of the Red Sox, and one of the world’s most beautiful library buildings. I visit the Boston Public Library, McKim Building, at Copley Square every time I’m in town. It’s like walking into an architectural museum. You can spend an hour in that building without reading a book.

If you want to stay outdoors, the famous Duck Tours, those funs rides on the amphibious buses, ultimately will take you on a short cruise of the Charles River. My wife and I look a tour last year and the guides told you everything you wanted to know about Boston.

So all of this is leading up to me telling you that Boston is a wonderful site for a meeting, most notably the next ACS  fall meeting, Aug. 22-26.

We’ll have much more detail about the program as the spring progresses, but already you can see what a good choice ACS has made when I tell you the main theme: Chemistry for Preventing & Combating Disease. With Massachusetts General Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Tufts-New England Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Boston –– just to name some –– famed medical centers in the area, there will be no shortage of local research presented at the meeting. In addition, Boston is, of course, well-known for its dozens of prestigious colleges, such as MIT and Harvard.

As usual, the meeting will cover a broad spectrum of scientific topics from food and nutrition, medicine, health, energy, the environment, and other fields where chemistry plays a central role. A total of nearly 8,000 presentations are now scheduled for the meeting, which will be held at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center and area hotels. It’s a bit early for media registration, which will be offered later this spring, but ACS members and nonmembers can register here.

 

Image courtesy of The Back Bay.