Congrats to Sophia Rauscher on successfully defending her thesis! She is the twelfth PhD student to graduate from the group. Special thanks to jury members Prof. Sheref Mansy (Alberta), Dr. Thibault Cantat (CEA), and Prof. Xavier Bugaut (Strasbourg) for being part of the jury. After a few months finishing up her last papers, Sophia will join Bachem in Basel, Switzerland. Best of luck and keep in touch!
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 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 