A warm welcome to Anas Abu Raed, who joins us from the group of Prof. Anat Milo at Ben-Gurion University, where he worked on multicomponent reactions and asymmetric catalysis. Anas is partially funded by an Israeli postdoctoral fellowship and will work on nonenzymatic versions of metabolic pathways. Welcome, Anas!
Congrats and farewell to postdoctoral fellow Yannick Geiger, who has started a tenure-track position (Chaire de Professeur Junior) to co-lead the Systems Chemistry Lab at our sister institute in Strasbourg (Chimie de la Matière Complexe). Yannick was only in our group for 11 months but quickly made an impact. We wish you all the best in your independent career!
Proud note: Yannick becomes the sixth PhD/postdoc from our lab to obtain an academic position since 2019, joining Sreejith, Robert, Marie, Abhijit, and Kamila. This doesn’t count research associates (David) or visiting PhD students (Martina) who have also gone on to lead their own academic labs.
Congrats to our former PhD student, Sreejith Varma, on being appointed as an Assistant Professor at IISER TVM, starting January 1, 2025. Check out his research page here.
Joris and Bora’s paper on the nonenzymatic hydration of phosphoenolpyruvate to 2-phosphoglycerate is accepted for publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. It is our lab’s fifth paper in that journal in 2024. The work describes an alternative strategy to search for the conditions conducive to the emergence of a protometabolism. Congrats!
Max’s paper on beta-aminoarylamine synthesis through dehydrative amination of 2-arylethanols has been accepted for publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Congrats!
Recent PhD graduate Émilie Werner has been named as a winner of the Prix Jeunes Talents France 2024 L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science. Congrats, Émilie!
Joris, Emilie and Shunjiro’s account of our lab’s work on the origin of metabolism has been accepted for publication in Accounts of Chemical Research. Congrats!
Congrats to Valentyn Pozhydaiev on successfully defending his thesis! He is the sixteenth PhD student to graduate from the group. Special thanks to jury members Prof. Olga Garcia Mancheño (Münster), Prof. Louis Fensterbank (Collège de France), and Dr. Anis Tlili (Lyon) for being part of the jury.
Quentin and Robert’s mini-review of our lab’s recent work showing that essential coenzymes (ADP, NADH, PLP) exhibit nonenzymatic reactivity in the presence of metal ions is published in Science Advances. Collectively, the work gives insight into the role coenzymes might have played in a pre-enzymatic metabolism. Congrats to all!
Valentyn’s paper on tetrahydroquinoline synthesis starting from N-benzylhydroxylamines has been accepted for publication in Chemical Communications. Congrats also to undergraduate author Daniella for her contributions!
The Moran Research Group 