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Yo ur op ini on ab ou t SY NF OR M is we lco me , ple as e co rre sp on d if yo u lik e: ma rk et ing @t hie me -c he mi str y.c omThis document was downloaded for personal use only. Unauthorized distribution is strictly prohibited.Dear readers, the 245th ACS National Meeting & Exposition, April 7-11, 2013, was held in New Orleans (Louisiana, USA). In line with my previous experience with ACS meetings, it was a massive chemistry experience and a great opportunity to meet colleagues from all over the world and catch up with the most exciting and recent developments and trends in chemistry. Many think that ACS meetings are just too large and hectic, and although I tend to agree with that, I always take home a lot of excitement, new ideas and extra motivation. I confess that I really enjoy ACS meetings and I think they are a fantastic and unique experience, which I definitely recommend to young researchers. Not everything is ideal of course, for example the cost of most ACS Hotels is, in my opinion, exceedingly high, almost prohibitive. However, I am always impressed by the nearly perfect organization of these huge meetings, for example ca. 15,000 delegates gathered in New Orleans, a city that only eight years ago was struck by the disaster of Hurricane Katrina and today is amazingly back on track, vibrant and multicultural as one would expect from "The Big Easy". In this special issue of SYNFORM we selected four communications (out of several thousand!!!), where we tried to emphasize the excellent work of younger up-and-coming researchers. The first SYNSTORY comes from the industry, and specifically from Genentech Inc. (USA) where Dr. B. Wong developed a new synthetic strategy for preparing 3-amino-1,2,4-triazoles. The second originates from the brilliant work developed by Professor J. Hu (P. R. of China) in the area of stereoselective organofluorine chemistry. The third SYNSTORY reports on a novel strategy for the efficient tert-butylation of anilines, a notoriously challenging reaction, developed by Dr. J. W. Cran (USA). Last but not least, a very interesting approach to alkyne hydrofunctionalization, which was very effectively communicated in New Orleans by postgraduate student R. Rucker from the group of Professor G. Lalic (USA). May I define all this "Creole-Cajun chemistry"? Matteo ZandaThis document was downloaded for personal use only. Unauthorized distribution is strictly prohibited.In recent years, there has been a surprisingly high number of incidents, both in academic and industrial labs, resulting in serious injuries or even death. A certain lack of safety awareness persists in the synthetic organic chemistry community, especially in academia where most reactions are performed on a relatively small scale. However, in industry -especially in process research and development -safety is of paramount importance as reactions are often conducted on a much larger scale, thus, the severity of any incident would be much higher. Haiming Zhang, Brian Wong and their team at Genentech, Inc. (South San Francisco, ...