The seventh incoming class of PhD students joins the group. Cyprien, funded by the CSC Graduate School, will work on Vibrational Strong Coupling. Emilie, funded by a ENS scholarship, and Joris, funded by an MRT fellowship, will both work on proto-metabolism. A warm welcome to all three!
Author: moranlab
“Forcheurs Jean-Marie Lehn” Prize
Joseph has received the 2020 “Forcheurs Jean-Marie Lehn” prize together with Harun Tüysüz (Max–Planck-Institut for Coal research, Mülheim, Germany) for their collaborative work on transition metals in prebiotic chemistry. The prize supports promising collaborations between young French and German researchers in the areas of health, pharmacology or chemistry. The prize is co-organized by the French Embassy in Berlin and the Université Franco-Allemande, and generously sponsored by BASF France and Sanofi Deutschland. A ceremony was held in Berlin on September 29, 2020. More information can be found here.
New publication
Valentyn Pozhydaiev and Martin Power’s feature article on the role of the solvent HFIP in Brønsted and Lewis acid catalyzed reactions has been published in Chemical Communications. Most of this writing was a product of their M1 and M2 stages, respectively and was carried out while the lab was shut down due to COVID-19. Congrats!
Dr. Nicolas Zeidan joins the lab
A warm welcome to Nicolas Zeidan, who has obtained a Marie Curie fellowship from the European Commission to join our lab. The project is called NonEnzymatic and will investigate non-enzymatic metabolic reactions in prebiotic chemistry. Nicolas comes to us from Mark Lautens’ group at the University of Toronto, where he worked on Pd-catalyzed methods for heterocycle synthesis. Congrats and welcome, Nicolas!
Abhijit leaves for IICT Hyderabad
Farewell to Marie Curie postdoc Abhijit Sau, who leaves us for a tenure track position at IICT Hyderabad. Abhijit will work at home for a couple of months to write grants and finish papers before launching his new lab. Congratulations and good luck!
Kamila finalist for the EYCN Award
Congrats to Kamila Muchowska for being chosen as one of the six finalists for the European Young Chemist Award at the Early Career Researcher level!
Farewell to the MSc Students
2020 has been a challenging year for young researchers, but our MSc students have made the most of it. Unable to work in the lab, Valentyn Pozhydaiev (M1 EUR) and Martin Power (M2 EUR) both finished top of their class for their internships and co-authored a feature article that is now under review. Daria Brykczyńska (M1, Poznań University, Poland), Eugénie (M1 CB), Louis-Albin Gravillier (M2 CB) and Joris Zimmermann (M2 CB) completed their internships despite their lab time being cut very short. Luckily, Elodie Didier (M1, University of Geneva, Switzerland) was able to reschedule her internship over the summer so that she could do some lab work. We will miss them all but look forward to their bright future!
Martin will join Prof. Dave Leigh’s lab in Manchester as a Marie Curie PhD student. Joris won an MRT fellowship to do a PhD in our lab. Congrats and good luck!
New publication
Kamila and Sreejith’s 37-page review on the feasibility and importance of non enzymatic metabolic reactions for the origin of life has appeared in Chemical Reviews. We hope it will inspire others to pursue this direction. Congrats!
New publication
Shaofei’s article on the surprising mechanism of boronic acid catalyzed reactions of alcohols and oximes has been published in Chemistry – A European Journal. Congrats!
New publication
A collaboration with Marco Cecchini’s group, this is a mixed computational and experimental attempt to rationalize why specific nitro compounds change the kinetic orders of some Brønsted acid catalyzed reactions. The model successfully predicts that sulphate esters should behave similarly. It has been published in Chemistry – A European Journal as part of the EuChemS special issue. Congrats to Marian and Ed for what ended up being the last of their many papers in the group! Also thanks to the Cecchini group for their endurance.
