Confirmed Speakers

Michelle is a professor at UC Berkeley in the Departments of Chemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology, and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. She received her Ph.D. from MIT, working with JoAnne Stubbe and Daniel Nocera, and her postdoctoral training with Jay Keasling at UC Berkeley. She started her independent career in 2007 at UC Berkeley. Her research group works at the interface of enzymology and synthetic biology, with a focus on studying biological fluorine chemistry, enzymatic halogenation, and processes involved in developing synthetic biofuel and monomer pathways. She has received the Dreyfus New Faculty Award, TR35 Award, Beckman Young Investigator Award, NSF CAREER Award, Agilent Early Career Award, NIH New Innovator Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, 3M Young Faculty Award, Arthur Cope Scholar Award, Pfizer Award, and RSC Centenary Prize.

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Véronique Gouverneur obtained a PhD in chemistry at the Université Catholique de Louvain (LLN, Belgium), under the supervision of Professor Léon Ghosez. In 1992, she moved to a postdoctoral position with Professor Richard Lerner at the Scripps Research Institute (California, USA). She took a position of Maître de Conférence at the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg (France); during this period, she worked with Dr Charles Mioskowski and was Associate Member of the “Institut de Science et d'Ingénierie Supramoléculaires” led by Professor Jean-Marie Lehn. Véronique started her independent research career at the University of Oxford in 1998 in the Department of Chemistry and was promoted to Professor of Chemistry in 2008. Since her appointment in Oxford, she holds a tutorial fellowship at Merton College Oxford where she teaches organic chemistry. She has coordinated European ITN projects (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-ITN, RADIOMI and H2020-MSCA-ITN-2016, FLUDD), and is currently the holder of an ERC Advanced grant (2019-2024). She is the (co)author of > 200 peer-reviewed publications and 10 patents. Her research has been disseminated at numerous internal conferences, and rewarded by numerous prizes and distinctions including the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit award (2013-2018), the ACS Award for Creative work in Fluorine Chemistry 2015, the RSC Tilden Prize 2016, the Tetrahedron Chair 2016, the Prelog Medal 2019, and the RSC Organic Stereochemistry Award 2019. She was elected Member of the European Academy of Sciences (EURASC) in 2017, and Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2019.

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Anat Milo received her B.Sc./B.A. in Chemistry and Humanities from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, her M.Sc. from UPMC Paris with Bernold Hasenknopf, and Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science with Ronny Neumann. Her postdoctoral studies at the University of Utah with Matthew Sigman focused on physical organic descriptors and data science approaches in chemistry. In the end of 2015 she joined the Department of Chemistry at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where her research group develops experimental, statistical, and computational strategies for identifying molecular design principles in catalysis and intercepting reactive intermediates in organocatalysis by second sphere interactions.

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Mónica H. Pérez-Temprano obtained her PhD in 2011 at the University of Valladolid (Spain) under the supervision of Prof. Espinet and Prof. Casares. In 2012, she joined the research group of Prof. Melanie Sanford at the University of Michigan. In 2015, she began her independent career as Junior Group Leader at Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), and in 2022, she was promoted to Senior ICIQ Group Leader.

Her research group group is focused on using mechanisms as a priori tool for developing innovative and more sustainable first-row metal-catalyzed transformations. Her research career has been recognized with different awards and honors including her selection as one of the “Talented 12” of 2018 by Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the 2020 Young Investigator Group Leader Award by the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry or the 2021 Young Investigator Award by the EuChemS Division of Organic Chemistry. In addition, she is member of the International Advisory Board of Organometallics, Chem Catalysis and the Early Career Advisory Board of Chemistry – A European Journal.

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Matt Sigman was born in Los Angeles, California in 1970. He received a B.S. in chemistry from Sonoma State University in 1992 before obtaining his Ph.D. at Washington State University with Professor Bruce Eaton in 1996 in organometallic chemistry. He then moved to Harvard University to complete an NIH funded postdoctoral stint with Professor Eric Jacobsen. In 1999, he joined the faculty of the University of Utah where his research group has focused on the development of new synthetic methodology with an underlying interest in reaction mechanism. His research program explores the broad areas of oxidation catalysis, asymmetric catalysis, and the relationship between structure and function in complex reactions. He currently is the Peter J. Christine S. Stang Presidential Endowed Chair of Chemistry at the rank of Distinguished Professor and is the department chair.

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Saron Catak obtained a joint (co-tutelle) PhD in computational chemistry from the University of Lorraine (Nancy, FR) and Bogazici University (Istanbul, TR) in 2008. She was a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Kendall N. Houk’s group at the University of California, Los Angeles, before joining the Center for Molecular Modeling (CMM) at Ghent University (Belgium) as a research associate and group leader for computational organic chemistry. Prior to joining Bogazici University as full-time faculty in 2013, she worked as Team Leader in the Computational Chemistry group at Syngenta Crop Protection (Basel, CH). She currently holds a full professor position and is Head of the Department of Chemistry since 2022. Her research group, ‘Computational Chemistry and Biochemistry’ (www.ccbg.boun.edu.tr) explores a multitude of chemical and biochemical topics using computational methods ranging from quantum mechanics, DFT, molecular dynamics to drug discovery. One of her main research interests is simulations of organic reactions in solution as well as biochemical reactions in biological systems.

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Prof. Christophe Copéret (CCH) was trained in chemistry and chemical engineering at CPE Lyon, France, and carried out a PhD in chemistry with Prof. E.i. Negishi (Purdue University, USA – 1991-1996), where he investigated the synthesis of complex molecules via Pd-catalyzed carbonylation reactions. After a postdoctoral stay with Prof. K.B. Sharpless (Scripps), CCH was offered a research position at CNRS in 1998 and was promoted CNRS Research Director in 2008. Since 2010, CCH is Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich. His scientific interest lies at the frontiers of molecular, material and surface chemistry as well as NMR spectroscopy with the aims to design molecularly-defined solid catalysts through detailed mechanistic studies and structure-activity relationships. CCH is a member of the Board of the Swiss Chemical Society and Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

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Matt Francis is the Joel Hildebrand Distinguished Professor and Chemistry Department Chair at UC Berkeley. Matt received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Miami University in Oxford, OH in 1994. From 1994-1999 he attended graduate school at Harvard University, working in the lab of Prof. Eric Jacobsen. He then moved to UC Berkeley, where he was a Postdoctoral Fellow under the guidance of Prof. Jean Fréchet. Matt started his independent career in the UC Berkeley Chemistry Department in 2001, and has built a research program involving the development of new organic reactions for protein modification. These chemical tools have been used to prepare new biomolecular materials for diagnostic imaging, drug delivery, water treatment, and solar cell development.

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Vladimir Gevorgyan received his PhD from the Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis in 1984. After two years of Postdoctoral research (1992-1994, JSPS- and Ciba-Geigy International Postdoctoral Fellowships) at Tohoku University, Japan, and a visiting professorship (1995) at CNR, Bologna, Italy, he joined faculty at Tohoku University (Assistant Professor, 1996; Associate Professor, 1997-1999). Vladimir Gevorgyan joined UIC as an Associate Professor in 1999. He was promoted to the rank of Full Professor in 2003, and a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 2012. In 2019, Vladimir Gevorgyan moved to Texas to become a Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair in Chemistry at the University of Texas at Dallas. He also holds a Professor position at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

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A. Stephen K. Hashmi is Professor for Organic Chemistry at Heidelberg University and Director of the Instiute of Organic Chemistry. His Major research interest are homogeneous catalysis reactions, his group has a special interest in gold catalysis. His previous academic stations were Munich, Stanford, Berlin, Frankfurt, Vienna, Marburg and Stuttgart.

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C. Oliver Kappe is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Graz (Austria) and Scientific Director of the Center of Continuous Flow Synthesis and Processsing (CC FLOW). He received his diploma (1989) and his doctoral (1992) degrees in organic chemistry from the University of Graz and after two postdoctoral stays (University of Queensland and Emory University) returned to Graz in 1996 to start his indepenent acacdemic career and was appointed Full Professor in 2011. For the past decade the focus of his research has been directed towards flow chemistry/microreaction technology, encompassing a wide variety of synthetic transformations and experimental techniques. His research group is actively involved in projects dealing with API synthesis and manufacturing, employing a number of different enabling and process intensification strategies.

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Benjamin List was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1968. He studied chemistry at the Free University of Berlin and received his PhD from the Goethe University in Frankfurt (1997, Prof. G. Mulzer). He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla/United States from 1997 to 1998 and as an assistant professor from 1999 to 2003. In 2003, he moved to the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim/Ruhr as head of a research group and became one of the directors there in 2005. He still holds this position today. He also heads a research group at Hokkaido University in Japan and is an honorary professor at the University of Cologne. List has been awarded dozens of prestigious prizes in the field of chemistry. In 2021, he received the Nobel Prize for his work on asymmetric organocatalysis. Benjamin List lives in Mülheim Ruhr, he is married and father of two grown-up sons.

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Scott Rychnovsky is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Irvine. He received a BS degree from UC Berkeley in 1981 and a Ph. D. degree from Columbia University in 1986. After postdoctoral appointments at Harvard and Yale, he began his academic career at the University of Minnesota. He moved to UC Irvine as a full professor in 1995. He recently completed a two-year rotation as a Program Officer in the Chemistry Division at the National Science Foundation. Professor Rychnovsky’s research focuses on the synthesis and structural assignment of natural products, as well as the development of new methods for chemical synthesis. In addition to chemical synthesis projects, he has collaborated with Professor Huang at UC Irvine to developed new CID-cleavable cross-links to probe the structure of protein-protein complexes.

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Matt Sigman was born in Los Angeles, California in 1970. He received a B.S. in chemistry from Sonoma State University in 1992 before obtaining his Ph.D. at Washington State University with Professor Bruce Eaton in 1996 in organometallic chemistry. He then moved to Harvard University to complete an NIH funded postdoctoral stint with Professor Eric Jacobsen. In 1999, he joined the faculty of the University of Utah where his research group has focused on the development of new synthetic methodology with an underlying interest in reaction mechanism. His research program explores the broad areas of oxidation catalysis, asymmetric catalysis, and the relationship between structure and function in complex reactions. He currently is the Peter J. Christine S. Stang Presidential Endowed Chair of Chemistry at the rank of Distinguished Professor and is the department chair.

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Following a PhD at the ETHZ (with Prof.s LM Venanzi and D. Seebach, organometallic chemistry and catalysis) and a postdoc at Cornell University (with Prof. Roald Hoffmann, applied theoretical chemistry), Thomas Ward started his independent career at the University of Berne as A. Werner Fellow in 1993. He moved to the University of Neuchâtel in Fall 2000 as full professor of bioinorganic chemistry and initiated there the field of artificial metalloenzymes. After seven years spent there, he moved to the University of Basel in March 2008. He is the director of the National Center of Competence in Research entitled “Molecular Systems Engineering”. In 2016, he was awarded an advanced ERC grant to realize his DrEAM: the Directed Evolution of Artificial Metalloenzymes.

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Nicolas Winssinger received his B.Sc. in chemistry from Tufts University. He then carried out his doctoral studies under the tutelage of professor KC Nicolaou at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI). After his PhD, he remained at Scripps to work in the group of professor P.G. Schultz as an NIH postdoctoral fellow. In 2002, he moved to the Institut de Science et Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (ISIS), Strasbourg University (formerly Université Louis Pasteur) as an assistant professor and was promoted to full professor in 2005. Shortly thereafter, he was elected to the Insitut Universitaire de France (IUF). In 2012 he moved to the University of Geneva where he currently is a professor in the department of organic chemistry.

His current research aims to develop enabling methods in chemistry to further our understanding of complex biological networks. An important theme through this research is the use of unnatural nucleic acid (PNA) to program spatial organization and reactivity. A long-term objective is to extend these principles towards complex systems that can emulate some of the fundamental features of living systems. An integral part of these endeavors is the use of bioactive small molecules that can modulate protein function with a particular focus on biologically validated natural products.

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Gonçalo Bernardes is a Professor of Chemical Biology at the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, UK and Fellow of Trinity Hall College, Cambridge, UK.

After completing his D.Phil. in 2008 at the University of Oxford, U.K., he undertook postdoctoral work at the Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany, and the ETH Zürich, Switzerland, and worked as a Group Leader at Alfama Lda in Portugal. He started his independent research career in 2013 at the University of Cambridge as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. In 2018 he was appointed University Lecturer (Tenured), and he has been promoted to Reader (Associate Professor) in 2019 and to Full Professor in 2022.

Gonçalo is the recipient of two European Research Council grants; a starting grant and a proof-of-concept grant, and was awarded the Harrison–Meldola Memorial Prize in 2016 from the Royal Society of Chemistry, the 2020 Young Chemical Biologist Award from the International Chemical Biology Society (ICBS) and recently the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientist in the UK – Finalist in Chemistry. His research group interests focus on the use of chemistry principles to tackle challenging biological problems for understanding and fight cancer. He has co-founded two companies that use technologies he developed in his lab, serves as an advisor / scientific board member of several companies and recently became a Senior Fellow at Flagship Pioneering.

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Yoann Coquerel was born in Rouen (France) in 1975. He started his education at the Université de Bourgogne and moved to the Université Grenoble Alpes where he earned his Ph.D. in 2001. He pursued postdoctoral studies at Florida State University. In 2003, he joined Aix-Marseille Université as a Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) research fellow and was promoted research director in 2015. His current research interests are focused on chirality in aromatic organic molecules, from stereoselective synthesis to physical chemistry.

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Wim De Borggraeve is group leader of the MolDesignS research group at the Department of Chemistry at KU Leuven. He received his PhD in Chemistry at KU Leuven in 2002. He continued his career as a postdoctoral fellow of FWO-Vlaanderen and worked in the groups of Prof. W.D. Lubell (Université de Montréal) and C. Toniolo (Università di Padova). In 2009, he was appointed as assistant professor at the Department of Chemistry at KU Leuven. In 2022 he was promoted to full professor. Next to teaching chemistry courses to over 500 students each year, he does research in medicinal chemistry and synthetic method development.

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Daniel G. Rivera is a Full Research Professor in Chemistry and Director of the Laboratory of Synthetic and Biomolecular Chemistry at the University of Havana, Cuba. He graduated in Chemistry with honors at the University of Havana in 2002 and earned the PhD (summa cum laude) in 2007 working at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry, Germany, where he is currently Visiting Investigator. His research interests focus on the synthesis of natural products, multicomponent and catalytic reactions, macrocyclization and bioconjugation approaches and vaccine development. He is a Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Member of the Cuban Academy of Science and the current President of the Latin-American Federation of Chemical Associations.

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Rebecca Goss is a bioorganic chemist/chemical biologist with research interests in the biosynthesis of natural products at the chemical and genetic level. Research within the group focuses on natural products with important medicinal properties and in understanding how biosynthetically intriguing motifs within these compounds are assembled. From this vantage point the group harness individual enzymes as convenient tools for organic synthesis, and employ a combination of synthetic chemistry and synthetic biology to harness entire biosynthetic pathways in order to enable expeditious access to libraries of medicinally relevant compounds. These libraries may be used as tools to gain a greater understanding as to how the drug acts at the molecular level within the cell.

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Trond Vidar Hansen is professor in medicinal chemistry at the Department of Pharmacy, University of Oslo. He received his Ph.D. degree from The Norwegian University of Life Sciences in 2001 with professors Yngve H. Stenstrøm and Lars Skattebøl as supervisors. After a short period working in industry he was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Pharmacy, University of Oslo (2001-2003, Professor Lars Skattebøl) and The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California (2004, Professor K. Barry Sharpless). He began his independent academic career as an associate professor in medicinal chemistry at the Department of Pharmacy, University of Oslo, in late 2004, where he was promoted to full professor in 2011. Dr. Hansen’s research activities focuses on method development, total synthesis of bioactive lipids and medicinal chemistry in a broad meaning.

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Laurean Ilies is the team leader of the Advanced Organic Synthesis Team at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science. His research interests include sustainable catalysis, efficient synthetic transformations, creation of molecules for materials science, and process chemistry. He moved to Japan from his native Romania in 1999, and graduated from the University of Tokyo (BS 2004, MS 2006, Ph.D. 2009, advisor: Prof. Eiichi Nakamura). He was appointed assistant professor at the University of Tokyo in 2009, and promoted to associate professor in 2014. Since 2018, he is a team leader at RIKEN, and since 2021, professor adjunct at Saitama University.

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Prof. Paradisi graduated with a BSc in Chemistry and then a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Bologna. In 2002 she joined the group of Prof. Engel at University College Dublin for her post doc and started working in the area of Biocatalysis. She got her first academic position in the School of Chemistry in UCD in 2006 where she remained till 2016. She was recruited then by the University of Nottingham as Associate Professor in Biocatalysis and promoted to Full Professor in 2019. In the same year however, she was offered the Chair of Sustainable Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Bern and relocated to Switzerland. Her work focusses on developing eco-friendly and ultra-efficient biotransformations for the synthesis of high-value chemicals, to increasing the applicability of biocatalysis. Flow-biocatalysis and enzyme immobilization are core technologies of the Paradisi Lab.

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Mónica H. Pérez-Temprano obtained her PhD in 2011 at the University of Valladolid (Spain) under the supervision of Prof. Espinet and Prof. Casares. In 2012, she joined the research group of Prof. Melanie Sanford at the University of Michigan. In 2015, she began her independent career as Junior Group Leader at Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), and in 2022, she was promoted to Senior ICIQ Group Leader.

Her research group group is focused on using mechanisms as a priori tool for developing innovative and more sustainable first-row metal-catalyzed transformations. Her research career has been recognized with different awards and honors including her selection as one of the “Talented 12” of 2018 by Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the 2020 Young Investigator Group Leader Award by the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry or the 2021 Young Investigator Award by the EuChemS Division of Organic Chemistry. In addition, she is member of the International Advisory Board of Organometallics, Chem Catalysis and the Early Career Advisory Board of Chemistry – A European Journal.

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Erwan Poupon is a full professor of Natural Product Chemistry at Paris-Saclay University. He obtained his PharmD from the University of Rennes in 1996 and his PhD from Paris-Descartes University in 2000 under the guidance of Pr Henri-Philippe Husson and Dr. Nicole Kunesh. After a post-doctoral period in the group of Pr Emmanuel Theodorakis (University of California in San Diego, USA), he joined the faculty at Paris-Sud University (now Université Paris-Saclay). He is particularly interested in understanding the intimate mechanisms involved in the biosynthetic pathways of specialized metabolites that can explain the “emergence” of molecular complexity. Other interests include the anticipation and discovery of new natural products from plants, marine invertebrates and micro-organisms as well as natural product-based drug design.

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Prof. of RAS Leonid G. Voskressensky got his PhD from the RUDN University (Moscow) in 1999, followed by Dr.Sc in 2010 . His current position is Dean of Science of the same University. He is also a visiting lecturer at the universities of Ghent (Belgium), Dusseldorf, Giessen (Germany) and Loughborough (England) and Deputy Chief Editor of the Chemistry of Heterocyclic Compounds journal. Professor Voskressensky is the author of over 120 research articles. His research interests include chemistry of heterocyclic compounds, cascade and multicomponent reactions.

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Joanna Wencel-Delord was educated in chemistry at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Rennes, France and she received her PhD in 2010 from the University of Rennes 1, France (Dr C. Crévisy and Dr M. Mauduit). After postdoctoral studies with Prof. F. Glorius at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (Germany) and a temporary assistant professor position (ATER) at the University of Strasbourg (Prof. P. Compain), she joined CNRS in 2013 as an associate researcher and in 2021 she has been promoted to Research Director. Her research focuses on the transition metal-catalyzed asymmetric C–H activation, synthesis of axially chiral compounds, and chemistry of hypervalent compounds, including original hypervalent bromines. Her recent awards and distinctions include Bronze Medal of CNRS 2020, ERC-SG (2020), Guy Ourisson 2020 award attributed by Cercle Gutenberg, and Prize M. Julia for Emerging Talents, French Society of Chemistry, Organic Chemistry Division, (2018). She has published 63 articles and is the author of 2 patents.

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Gianluigi Albano received his PhD cum laude in Chemistry and Materials Science at the University of Pisa in March 2019, working under the supervision of Prof. Lorenzo Di Bari. In November 2019 he joined the group of Prof. Gianluca Maria Farinola at the University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, working as Post-Doctoral Researcher in Organic Chemistry. From April 2023 he is Junior Assistant Professor (RTDa) in Organic Chemistry at the University of Pisa. His research activity is focused on different topics related to Organic and Organometallic Chemistry: development of new protocols for the synthesis of heterocyclic compounds via transition metals-promoted reactions; synthesis of chiral organic π-conjugated materials with outstanding chiroptical features; development of green and sustainable strategies in Palladium-catalyzed coupling reactions. Among several national and international prizes, he was the recipient of the “Flavio Bonati Prize” 2022 assigned by the Italian Chemical Society, as the best under 35 Italian researcher working in the field of Organometallic Chemistry.

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Aminah Ahmed Almarshad obtained her BSc degree in chemistry from Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University in 2015, in Saudi Arabia. In 2019, she obtained her master’s degree in chemistry from Newcastle University, United Kingdom. Currently, she is PhD student at Newcastle University in the Dr Michael Hall group. She is working on the synthesis of a new class of chiral organic fluorophores dyes known as boron dipyrromethene (BODIPY). These compounds can emit circularly polarised light, known as circularly polarised luminescence (CPL).

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Erica Benedetti was born in Como (Italy) in 1984. She studied at the University of Insubria (Italy) where she obtained a master’s degree in Chemistry in 2008. She performed her doctoral studies at the University of Insubria, in co-tutorship with the Sorbonne Université, under the supervision Prof. A. Penoni and Prof. L. Fensterbank. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2011. During her Ph.D. thesis, E. Benedetti has been involved in projects aiming at preparing heterocyclic molecules using transition metal-catalyzed cyclisation reactions, with a particular focus on gold-catalyzed cycloizomerizations. In 2012, she joined the team of Prof. K. M. Brummond as a postdoctoral research associate. Her projects at the University of Pittsburgh (USA) have been focused on the synthesis and photophysical study of naphthalene-based solvatochromic dyes. During this first postdoc, E. Benedetti gained competence in fluorophore chemistry and spectroscopic characterization (UV-Vis and fluorescence spectroscopy). In 2013, she moved back to France to perform a second postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Prof. J. Cossy, and Dr. S. Arseniyadis (ESPCI Paris, PSL). There, she had the possibility to work on projects dealing with the development of bio-hybrid supramolecular catalytic systems involving the use of DNA or RNA sequences as chiral inductors in nucleophilic addition reactions. In this occasion, she acquired strong skills in asymmetric catalysis, and became familiar with different types of large biological molecules and supramolecular interactions. In 2014, after being successful to the CNRS entrance exam, she was appointed as junior researcher in the team of Dr. L. Micouin (UMR8601 - Université Paris Cité). The interests of the group span a wide range of topics in the fields of synthetic organic chemistry and chemical biology, all of them being grounded on molecular innovation. E. Benedetti’s current research projects focus on different aspects of [2.2]paracyclophane chemistry: the control of the planar chirality of these objects, the selective functionalization of their aromatic core, the modulation of their spectroscopic behavior, and the application of these compounds in different research fields (asymmetric catalysis, and bioorganic chemistry). E. Benedetti is co-author of 30 publications appeared in peer-reviewed journals. She is co-inventor of two patents, and co-author of four book chapters published by Wiley. She received the CNRS Bronze Medal in 2022.

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Acquired his master degree in chemistry in 2019 at UGent under the supervision of Prof. Johan Winne.

His master thesis was focused on tandem functionalization of dienes as a rapid entry into N-heterocyclic scaffolds, for which he obtained the Dow Benelux Excellence in Science Award.

Currently he is a last year PhD under the supervision of Prof. Johan Winne with a focus on metal catalysed electrophilic aminations of non-activated substrates.

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Wei Cao is a third-year PhD student at Université Paris-Saclay since 2020, supervised by Dr. Guillaume Vincent. Her research focuses on the total synthesis of indole alkaloids (ophiorrhine A, G, and ophiorrhiside E) and sesquiterpenes (pestalustaines A). Prior to her PhD studies, she gained research experience as a research assistant in the group of Prof. Dayong Shi at Shandong University, where she worked on synthetic methodology projects with ynamides, Chitin extraction, and synthesis of HPN (anti-hyperglycemic). She obtained her master's degree in 2019 from Ocean University of China, under the guidance of Prof. Yu Tang. During this period, she completed the total synthesis of isohericenone J and various synthetic methodology projects in the field of ynamides chemistry. Wei Cao received her bachelor's degree from Hunan Normal University in 2016, where she focused on the isolation of natural products.

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Josep Esteve Guasch did his bachelor in chemistry in Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), with minor in organic and biological chemistry. Then he got his MSc in organic chemistry at Uppsala University (Sweden), where he worked under the supervision of Associate Professor Lukasz Pilarski. After completing his master, he worked during one year in the synthesis and development of all-organic batteries, under the supervision of Prof. Martin Sjödin and Rikard Emmanuelson. Then he moved to Tarragona, where he started his PhD in Marcos G. Suero’s Group, in the Catalan Institute of Chemical Research (ICIQ). Here he is working in the catalytic and asymmetric carbyne transfer reactions.

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Aimar Gonzalo Barquero was born in A Coruña (Spain). She obtained her Master’s degree in organic chemistry at Université de Caen Normandie (France) in 2020. She is currently a Ph.D. student at Laboratoire de Chimie Moléculaire et Thio-organique (LCMT) in Caen, France, under the supervision of Pr. Jacques Rouden. Her research is focused on the synthesis of supported organocatalysts for an application in asymmetric decarboxylation reactions.

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Jean-Paul Heeb obtained his MSc from the University of Nottingham in 2019. During his studies, he completed an industrial placement with Roche in Basel, Switzerland, developing PROTAC degraders for oncological targets. He then joined Dr. Liam Ball’s group for his master’s research project exploring the synthesis and reactivity of dibismuthanes. He is currently working towards his Ph.D. with Professors Craig Butts and Jonathan Clayden through the TECS CDT in Bristol, UK, where he is developing novel spectroscopic methods to study dynamic exchange in small molecules. His interests lie within the areas of atropisomers, NMR methodology and variable temperature NMR.

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Peter Huy, born in 1980, is an associate professor for organic chemistry at the Institute of Chemistry at Rostock University since 2020. After his PhD with Prof. Hans-Guenther Schmalz (University of Cologne), he completed postdoctoral research projects with Prof. Ari Koskinen (Aalto University, Helsinki) and Prof. Benjamin List (MPI for carbon research, Muehlheim) and his habilitation from 2014 to 2020 with Prof. Uli Kazmaier (Saarland University). His research interests are dedicated towards organocatalysis with respect to nucleophilic substitutions, application of safer gas surrogates in transition metal catalysed transformations, green chemistry, mechanistic elucidations and the synthesis bioactive compounds like pharmaceuticals. Besides he is also engaged in the digitization of teaching by means of the YouTube channel @peterhuylab.

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Dr. Francisco Juliá-Hernández was born in Cieza (Murcia) and graduated in Chemistry at the University of Murcia (Spain) with an MSc in Molecular Chemistry in 2008. In 2012, he earned his PhD degree working on the synthesis of high-valent organometallic palladium complexes under the supervision of Prof. Vicente and Prof. Arcas at the University of Murcia. He then joined the group of Prof. Igor Larrosa at Queen Mary University of London (UK) for a postdoctoral position working on metal-catalyzed direct arylation reactions. In 2014, he was granted a COFUND Marie Curie postdoctoral grant to work in the group of Prof. Ruben Martin at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ). His work focused on studying novel metal-catalyzed carboxylation reactions with CO2. In late 2018, he started his independent career as an Assistant Professor in Organic Synthetic Chemistry in the Department of Organic Chemistry at Stockholm University (Sweden). In 2020, he returned to the University of Murcia with a Ramon y Cajal fellowship, where he continues to develop his independent research on the use of Earth-abundant metals as photocatalysts in organic synthetic transformations.

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The chemical career of Alica Keuper started in 2012 in Münster, the city where she is born. After her bachelor of science at the Westfälische Wilhelms Universität Münster, she finished her master of science in March 2020 in the group of Prof. Olga Garcia Mancheño. Since May 2020 she is part of her group as a PhD candidate and work in the field of catalyst designs and applications in asymmetric halogen- and chalcogen-bond catalysis.

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Hugo Madec completed his MSc in Molecular chemistry at Sorbonne University in 2021. He is currently a PhD candidate under the supervision of Sylvain Roland and Matthieu Sollogoub at Sorbonne University. His research is focused on the development of biocompatible encapsulated copper photocatalysts.

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Georg Manolikakes obtained his PhD in 2009 at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Germany) under the supervision of Prof. Paul Knochel. AOer a postdoctoral stay with Prof. Phil S. Baran (Scripps Research InsRtute La Jolla/USA) he started his independent career as group leader at the Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany). Since 2017, he his professor for organic chemistry at the RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau (Germany). Research acRviRes in the Manolikakes group focuses on method development, stereoselecRve synthesis and medicinal chemistry.

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Beatriz Torgal Martins is a PhD student at the Bioorganic Chemistry Laboratory at Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier (ITQB-NOVA) in Oeiras, Portugal. Her PhD focuses on the evaluation of the therapeutic properties of oleocanthal, oleacein and analogues. For this purpose, the design and development of a new efficient asymmetric synthesis of oleocanthal, oleacein is the main aim, as well as the synthesis of metabolites of VOO phenolic compounds. Her project is interdisciplinary at the crossroad between chemistry (synthesis of the compounds and the analytical studies) and biology (in vitro studies, namely metabolism and cell-based assays). Her PhD work intends to be an important step to understanding how this family of compounds can contribute to the health benefits associated with VOO consumption and can open new strategies to the production of new molecules with interest for the pharmaceutical industry.

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Josep Mas-Roselló was born in 1990 in València (Spain). He obtained his PhD in 2017 from the University of Bristol (UK). Under the guidance of Jonathan Clayden, his research focused on the synthesis of unnatural amino acid derivatives. Then he moved on to a 3-years postdoc with Nicolai Cramer at EPFL (Switzerland), where he worked in asymmetric catalysis. Subsequently, he did a second postdoc with Karl Gademann at University Zurich, and last year he started his independent career as Junior Group Leader at ETH Zurich. His research is directed towards developing new catalytic methods for sustainable organic synthesis, with emphasis on the design of effective ligands and catalysts.

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Moshe Portnoy is an associate professor of organic chemistry in Tel Aviv University. Born in 1963, he completed his Ph.D. degree in 1994 in the Weizmann Institute of Science with Prof. David Milstein. Following his postdoctoral research with Prof. Itamar Willner (the Hebrew University) and Prof. Barry Trost (Stanford University), he joined the School of Chemistry in Tel Aviv University in 1997. Since then he conducted research in the fields of solid-phase synthesis as well as supported, dendritic and enantioselective catalysis. His current research interests are organocatalysis and selectivity, with a particular emphasis on site-selectivity.

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Originally from Kyiv, Ukraine, Valentyn Pozhydaiev obtained his BSc and MSc degrees in chemistry at the University of Strasbourg, France. After 1-semester industrial placement at BASF in Ludwigshafen, Germany, he started his PhD studies under supervision of Dr. David Leboeuf and Prof. Joseph Moran. His research interests include development of methodologies employing hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIP) as a solvent to unlock reactivity of strongly electron-deficient substrates otherwise unreactive in any other conventional organic solvent system.

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Pablo Rivero graduated from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), with minor in Organic and Biological chemistry. He obtained his master’s degree at UAB with a specialization in Advanced Chemical Research. In his master’s thesis he worked on the total synthesis of a natural azaphenalene alkaloid under the supervision of Prof. Marta Figueredo. After completing his master's, he moved to Tarragona where he started his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Maribel Matheu. His research is focused on the synthesis sphingolipids, with the aim of inhibiting the enzyme Dihydroceramide Desaturase 1 (Des1) which has emerged as a new therapeutic target against cancer. During his PhD, he spent three months working at Prof. Andreas Brunschweiger's group at TU Dortmund University (Germany), where he worked on DNA-encoded libraries technology.

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At the Vienna University of Technology, Fabian pursued his bachelor thesis in polymer chemistry, focusing on lignin-based polymers. In 2019, he finished his Master's degree, with a focus on catalyst design for organocatalytic transfer-hydrogenations, under the guidance of Katharina Schröder. Subsequently, he has been working as a Ph.D. candidate in the same group since 2019, continuing his research in the field of organocatalysis and method development.

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After a PhD thesis in 2008 under the supervision of Prof. Peter Goekjian and Dr. David Gueyrard (ICBMS 5246, University of Lyon 1), and two post-doctoral experiences in the group of Pr Victor Snieckus (University of kingston, Canada) and Prof. Christophe Hoarau (University of Rouen-Normandie), Dr. Cédric Schneider was appointed in 2013 as Associate Professor in the group of Pr. Christophe Hoarau (Laboratory COBRA, UMR 6014, University of Rouen). His current research is focused on developing transition-metal catalyzed C-H activation methodologies for the functionalization and/or construction of heterocycles.

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Seunghoon Shin received his B.S. (1994) and M.S. (1996) degree in chemistry from Seoul National University, and his Ph.D. degree from the Ohio State University in 2001. Following postdoctoral research at Stanford with Professor Barry M. Trost, he started his independent research program at Hanyang University (Seoul, Korea) in 2004. He has been focusing on the new reaction discovery by way of alkyne functionalizations and has been developing various asymmetric transformations using transition metal and non-metal catalysis. He has been serving as a committee member of the Korean Chemical Society (KCS) and Korean Society of Organic Synthesis (KSOS).

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Serena Traboni graduated in Chemical Sciences in 2014 at the University of Naples Federico II (Naples, Italy), where she also earned her Ph.D. in 2018 under the supervision of Prof. Alfonso Iadonisi. During this period, she worked on the development and the application of novel strategies for the synthetic transformations of carbohydrates.

She also spent some research periods at the University of Münster (Münster, Germany), as a Ph.D. student (in 2016) and as a Postdoc (in 2018), collaborating with Prof. Bart Jan Ravoo on the chemical glycosylation of glass surfaces in micropattern.

Currently she holds a temporary Research Fellow position (Italian RTDa) at the University of Naples with a research focused on the development of innovative, simplified and more sustainable methods in organic synthesis, and with a particular interest in solvent-free reactions applicable to complex and valuable carbohydrate compounds.

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Duc Tran joined Janssen since 2015 and is currently a Research Project Lead in the Chemical Process R&D department. In this role, he acts as scientific leader in the design of commercial synthesis for small molecules, aligns API development plan with CMC strategy, develops and grows his team members. He is located in Beerse site, Belgium.

He started his chemistry studies with the Technical Degree from IUT Le Mans, France. He then moved to ENS de Chimie in Montpellier to finish his “diplome d’ingenieur” in organic chemistry. In 2014, he received his PhD from ETH Zurich under the guidance of Prof. Nicolai Cramer where he studied asymmetric C-H activation and total synthesis of Psiguadial family. He then carried out his post doctoral research at University of Cambridge with Prof. Steve Ley to learn and apply flow chemistry in generating and handling highly reactive species such as unstabilizied diazo compounds.

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Dr Karolina Urbanska has received her PhD in chemistry from the University of Wroclaw (Poland) in 2022. In the same year she began her postdocrtoral fellowship in Prof. Mathias Senge's research group at Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin (Ireland). Her current research focuses mainly on the application of rigid non-conjugating hydrocarbons in functional molecules and materials.

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Johannes attended the University of Basel, Switzerland, where he earned his M.Sc. in 2012. After research stays in the group of Prof. Dr. Donna G. Blackmond at The Scripps Research Institute and the Institute for BioMedical Research at Novartis, Basel, he moved to Munich to pursue his Ph.D. with Prof. Dr. Thorsten Bach at the TU München. His doctoral endeavors dealt with pyrrole synthesis and their application as a directing group for C-H alkylation. Upon completion of his graduate studies, he moved to Indiana University to work with Prof. Dr. M. Kevin Brown on natural product synthesis as a DFG-funded post-doctoral fellow. During that time, he completed the first enantioselective synthesis of the sesquiterpene hebelophyllene E. Johannes started his independet career at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster. Since 2021 Johannes is an Assistant Professor at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz.

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