Sophia’s study on how metal catalysts can allow hydrogen gas to drive part of the reverse Krebs cycle under mild nonenzymatic conditions has been accepted for publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. She even found that iron-based meteorites can promote these reactions! Congrats!
The ninth incoming class of PhD students joins the group. Shunjiro, partially funded by a French government scholarship for Japanese students, will work on the evolution of cofactors. Jonas, funded by an ERC Grant, will work on non-enzymatic phosphorylation. A warm welcome to both!
Farewell to postdoc Marie Vayer, who leaves us to start her independent academic career in the CNRS at Paris-Saclay University. Congratulations on the dream job and good luck!
Congrats to Jing Yi on successfully defending her thesis! She is the tenth PhD student to graduate from the group. Special thanks to jury members Prof. Erwan Poupon (Paris Saclay), Dr. Yann Trolez (Rennes), and Prof. Stéphane Vuilleumier (Strasbourg) for being part of the jury. Best of luck!
Robert’s mechanistic study on reduction and reductive amination of ketoacids under simple nonenzymatic conditions has been accepted for publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Congrats and impressive work!
The Moran Lab celebrates 10 great years! Several former group members from around Europe were able to attend the celebration and shared short presentations about their jobs and life since leaving the lab. A day to remember!
Farewell to Marie Curie postdoc Nicolas Zeidan, who leaves us for a job as a senior scientist at Roche in Basel, Switzerland. Congratulations on the dream job and good luck!
Marie’s paper on the generation of trifluoromethylated all-carbon quaternary centres through the hydroarylation of trifluoromethylated styrenes is accepted for publication in ACS Catalysis. Thanks to Robert for the last-minute mechanistic help. Congrats!
Joseph reviews Nick Lane’s new book on the Krebs cycle for Science. Please have a read (the review and the book itself)!
Harpreet Kaur presented her PhD research (as well as some of Emilie’s and Sophia’s) on rare metal catalysis in prebiotic chemistry at the latest virtual meeting of NASA’s Prebiotic Chemistry and Early Earth Environments (PCE3) Research Coordination Network. As a bonus, don’t miss the 5-minute introduction to protometabolism by Kamila Muchowska. Well done, Harpreet!
You can watch her talk here (skip to 12:20)
The Moran Research Group 