Awards

“Forcheurs Jean-Marie Lehn” Prize

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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

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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!

Lucas wins best talk award at the REGIO Symposium

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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!

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Funding from Volkswagen Foundation

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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!

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Sreejith wins the FRC Thesis Prize

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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.