Harpreet, Sophia, and Emilie’s paper on an H2-driven Ni-catalyzed reaction network that can make new ketoacids through reductive aldol chemistry and enable their reductive amination to amino acids in one pot without human intervention has been accepted for publication in Chem. Many thanks to our collaborators in Germany (Dr. Harun Tüysuz, Dr. Youngsong Dong and Prof. Bill Martin). Congrats to all!
Congrats to Harpreet Kaur on successfully defending her thesis! She is the eleventh PhD student to graduate from the group. Special thanks to jury members Prof. Jeremy Wulff (Victoria), Prof. Yannick Vallée (Grenoble), and Dr. Claudia Bonfio (Strasbourg) for being part of the jury. Harpreet will stick around the lab for a few months to finish some last papers before heading off for a postdoc with Prof. Sheref Mansy at the University of Alberta, Canada. Best of luck!
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!
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)
Jing’s work on a non enzymatic analog of pyrimidine nucleobase biosynthesis has been accepted for publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Congrats!
Robert, Harpreet and Sophia’s re-evaluation and mechanistic study of metal ion-catalyzed transamination under biological conditions has been accepted for publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Congrats!
The sixth incoming class of PhD students joins the group. Sophia Rauscher, funded by the ProtoMet ITN, and Harpreet Kaur will both work on proto-metabolism. A warm welcome to both!
The Moran Research Group 