Congratulations to Dr. Robert Mayer, who has obtained a postdoctoral fellowship from the DFG to work on mechanistic challenges in prebiotic chemistry. Well deserved!
Awards
ERC Consolidator Grant
Joseph has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant (2 million €)! The award will allow us to pursue our dream to create reaction networks that resemble biological metabolism. Informal inquiries regarding postdoctoral positions related to this project are encouraged at any time.
“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.
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!
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!
Paul wins best talk prize at Journée des Doctorants
Congrats to Paul Chatelain for receiving the prize for best talk at the Journée des Doctorants, an annual symposium where PhD students from across the chemical sciences in Strasbourg present their work. Paul spoke about the Suzuki-Miyaura coupling of aryl sulfones, recently published in Angewandte Chemie.
Lucas wins best talk award at the REGIO Symposium
Congrats to Lucas Lethuillier for winning the prize for best oral presentation at the REGIO Symposium in the Mittelwihr, France. The REGIO Symposium is an annual tri-national conference on organic chemistry held jointly between the universities in the lower Rhine region (Freiburg, Basel, Strasbourg and Mulhouse). Lucas’ talk was on the application of vibrational strong coupling to control selectivity in organic synthesis. Well done!
Funding from Volkswagen Foundation
Joseph has received funding from the Volkswagen Foundation for a project called “Forming catalysts: A basic principle of deep chemistry, life chemistry and life”, which will be carried out in collaboration with Prof. William F. Martin (Düsseldorf) and Dr. Harun Tüysüz (MPI Mülheim/Ruhr). Each lab will roughly equally share the 1.5 M€ in funding. See the press release in English here and in German here. We are looking forward to officially getting the project started!
Sreejith wins the FRC Thesis Prize
Congratulations to Dr. Sreejith Varma, who won the FRC Thesis Prize for his PhD thesis on the chemical origins of metabolic pathways. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Charité Hospital in Berlin. Below, Sreejith and Vuk pose with their proud mothers after the graduation ceremony.
Kamila wins best talk award at the Polonium Foundation meeting in Berlin
Congrats to Dr. Kamila Muchowska for winning the People’s Choice award for Best Talk at the Polonium Foundation meeting “Science: Polish Perspectives 2018” in Berlin! Her talk described her recent advances in understanding the origins of biological metabolism. This is Kamila’s second “best talk” award in the part three months.
