Congratulations and farewell to DFG postdoctoral fellow Dr. Robert Mayer, who departs us to become an independent junior group leader at TU Munich. Robert published eight papers in the group, with two still under review. He recently received a Liebig fellowship from the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie (FCI). See photo below of our lab members sporting Mayer Lab T-shirts. Best of luck with the launch of the Mayer Lab and come visit often!
Joris and Robert’s paper on the mechanism of the nonenzymatic phosphorylation of pyruvate to phosphoenolpyruvate is published in Chemical Science. The results suggest that a single phosphorylation mechanism could have been sufficient to initiate a self-organized metabolic network. Congrats to all!
Congrats to Joris Zimmermann 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. Joris spoke about his work on the mechanism of the phosphorylation of pyruvate to phosphoenolpyruvate, recently published in Chemical Science.
Sinan is the sole member of the tenth incoming class of PhD students to join the group in Strasbourg. Sinan will work on a physical organic chemistry approach to understanding the impact of vibrational strong coupling on chemistry. Welcome, Sinan!
Emilie and Silvana’s paper on Fe(III)/ADP-promoted phosphate transfer from acetyl phosphate to nucleotide diphosphates to give nucleotide triphosphate in water is accepted in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Thanks to Robert for jumping in with DFT calculations during revisions. Congrats to all!
Congrats to Robert Mayer for winning the prize for best oral presentation at the REGIO Symposium in Freiburg-im-Breisgau, Germany. 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). Roberts’ talk was on how metals influence the reactivity of coenzymes in the absence of enzymes. Well done!
Robert’s book chapter summarizing his recent mechanistic work on nonenzymatic analogs of amino acid biosynthesis has been accepted for publication in Advances in Physical Organic Chemistry. Congrats!
Valentyn and Cyprien’s review of new synthetic methods to prepare β-arylethylamines has been accepted for publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Congrats!
Quentin’s paper showing substantial cooperative effects between pyridoxal and Fe(III) or Al(III) ions in prebiotic transamination reactions is accepted for publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Many thanks to Robert for the DFT studies. The last paper from Kamila’s time in the group – the end of an era. Congrats to all!
Cypriens’s paper on isochroman synthesis starting from epoxides in HFIP has been accepted for publication in Chemical Science. Congrats!
The Moran Research Group 