Anthony Davis, Chair
University of Bristol, UK
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5213-624X
Anthony Davis gained a B.A. in Chemistry from Oxford University in 1977, then stayed for a D.Phil. under Dr. G. H. Whitham and postdoctoral work with Prof. J. E. Baldwin. In 1981 he moved to the ETH Zürich as a Royal Society European Exchange Fellow working with Prof. A. Eschenmoser, then in 1982 was appointed Lecturer in Organic Chemistry at Trinity College, Dublin. In September 2000 he moved to the University of Bristol, where he is Professor of Supramolecular Chemistry in the School of Chemistry.
His research focuses on the development of supramolecular systems with potential for biological applications, especially carbohydrate receptors and transmembrane anion transporters. He has co-founded two companies to exploit discoveries in carbohydrate recognition and sensing; Ziylo, which was sold in 2018 to Novo Nordisk, and Carbometrics, which continues to work in the area.
Christian Hackenberger, Associate editor
Leibniz-Institut für Molekulare Pharmakologie and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7457-4742
Christian Hackenberger studied chemistry in Freiburg, Madison/WI and Aachen University. He obtained his MSc 1999 with Samuel H Gellman and in 2003 his PhD with Carsten Bolm at the RWTH Aachen University. After his postdoctoral studies with Barbara Imperiali at MIT he moved to the Freie Universität Berlin in 2005 as an independent Emmy Noether group leader. He was then appointed as Associate Professor of Bioorganic Chemistry in 2011. In 2012 he accepted the call for the Leibniz-Humboldt Professor of Chemical Biology at the FMP Berlin and the Humboldt University Berlin. Recent awards include the Heinz-Maier Leibnitz Award (2011) and the ORCHEM price for young investigators (2012).
Hackenberger’s research focus is located on the interface between organic chemistry, biochemistry and biophysics, in particular on the development of new bioorthogonal reactions to study protein function and in particular posttranslational modifications. Further research areas address the study of the Alzheimer-relevant tau protein, the design of structurally defined multivalent protein scaffolds, antibody-drug conjugates and new methods for the delivery of functional proteins into cells.
Katrina Jolliffe
University of Sydney, Australia
Katrina (Kate) Jolliffe received her BSc (Hons) in 1993 and PhD in 1997 from the University of New South Wales. She then held positions at Twente University, The Netherlands; the University of Nottingham, UK and the Australian National University before taking up an Australian Research Council QEII fellowship at The University of Sydney in 2002. In 2007 she became a Senior lecturer at the same institution and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2008 and to full Professor in 2009. She currently holds the position of Payne-Scott Professor at The University of Sydney. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and has been awarded the Beckwith (2004), Biota (2006), Birch (2017) and H. G. Smith (2018) medals of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. Her research interests are in the areas of supramolecular, peptide and organic chemistry, with a focus on the design and synthesis of functional molecules, such as molecular sensors capable of detecting anions in biological environments or cyclic peptides for application in biology and medicine.
Motomu Kanai, Associate editor
University of Tokyo
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1977-7648
Motomu Kanai was born in 1967 in Tokyo, Japan, and received his bachelor degree from The University of Tokyo (UTokyo) in 1989 under the direction of late Professor Kenji Koga. In the middle of his PhD course in UTokyo (in 1992), he obtained an assistant professor position in Professor Kiyoshi Tomioka’s group of Osaka University. He obtained his PhD from Osaka University in 1995. Then, he moved to University of Wisconsin, USA, for postdoctoral studies with Professor Laura L. Kiessling. In 1997 he returned to Japan and joined Professor Masakatsu Shibasaki’s group in UTokyo as an assistant professor. After doing lecturer (2000~2003) and associate professor (2003~2010), he is currently a professor in UTokyo (since 2010) and a principal investigator of ERATO Kanai Life Science Project (2011~2017). He has received The Pharmaceutical Society of Japan Award for Young Scientists (2001), Thieme Journals Award (2003), Merck-Banyu Lectureship Award (MBLA: 2005), Asian Core Program Lectureship Award (2008 and 2010), and Thomson-Reuters The 4th Research Front Award (2016). His research interests entail design and synthesis of functional (especially, biologically active) molecules.
Lei Liu, Associate editor
Tsinghua University, China
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6290-8602
Professor Liu graduated from University of Science and Technology of China (1999). He obtained his PhD from Columbia University (2004), and conducted post-doctoral research work at Scripps Research Institute (2004-2007). Liu started at Tsinghua University in 2007 and works as a Professor in the Chemistry department. His research group is interested in chemical protein synthesis.
Xiaohua Liu, Associate editor
Sichuan University, China
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9555-0555
Xiaohua Liu obtained her BSc degree from Hubei Normal University (2000), and obtained her MS (2003) and PhD (2006) from Sichuan University. She joined the faculty of Prof. Feng’s group in 2006, and was appointed as an associate professor. In 2010, she was promoted as a full professor. Her current research interests include asymmetric catalysis and chiral drug synthesis.
Santanu Mukherjee, Associate editor
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9651-6228
Santanu Mukherjee obtained his BSc (Chemistry Honors) from R. K. Mission Residential College, Narendrapur (2000) and MSc (Chemistry) from IIT, Kanpur (2002). After completing his doctoral studies with Professor Albrecht Berkessel at Universität zu Köln in 2006, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Benjamin List at Max-Planck Institut für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim an der Ruhr (2006-2008) and subsequently with Professor E. J. Corey at Harvard University (2008-2010). In 2010, he returned to India to join the Department of Organic Chemistry at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015.
He is a recipient of Thieme Chemistry Journals Award (2011), Indian National Science Academy (INSA) Medal for Young Scientists (2014) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2018).
His research interests primarily revolve around asymmetric catalysis with particular emphasis on the discovery of new enantioselective transformations. His research group mostly relies on hydrogen bonding, Lewis base and bifunctional catalysis. More recently, he is looking to expand his research activities in the realm of iridium-catalyzed asymmetric allylic substitution reactions.
Scott Silverman, Associate editor
University of Illinois, USA
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8166-3460
Scott K. Silverman was born in 1972 and raised in Los Angeles, California. He received his BS in chemistry from UCLA in 1991, working with Christopher Foote on photooxygenation mechanisms. He obtained his PhD in chemistry from Caltech in 1997, working with Dennis Dougherty to study high-spin organic polyradicals and molecular neurobiology. After postdoctoral research on RNA biochemistry with Thomas Cech at the University of Colorado at Boulder, he joined the University of Illinois in 2000, where he is currently Professor of Chemistry.
Professor Silverman's research is in the chemistry and biochemistry of nucleic acids, especially investigations of DNA as an enzyme (DNAzyme, deoxyribozyme).
Cristina Trujillo, Associate editor
The University of Manchester
Dr. Cristina Trujillo obtained her Ph.D. in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry in 2008 at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain). During the period 2008-2016, she held several Postdoctoral positions in Spain (CSIC), Prague (Academy of Sciences), and Ireland (Trinity College Dublin). From 2016 until 2018 she worked at TCD as a Research Fellow. After that, she worked as an Assistant Lecturer at TU-Dublin in the School of Chemical & Pharmaceutical Sciences. She has been awarded the very competitive SFI-Starting Investigator Research Grant (SIRG, 2018) and L’Oreal-Unesco Women in Science UK and Ireland Fellowship -Highly Commended (2019). She worked as an independent researcher leading her research group at TCD from 2019 to 2022. Currently, she is a Lecturer in Computational & Theoretical Chemistry at The University of Manchester.
She has expertise in highly fundamental topics within Computational Organic Chemistry such as asymmetric catalysis, computationally-led catalysis design, mechanisms of reaction, and non-covalent interactions. Her research interests are focused on the asymmetric catalysis field, with particular emphasis on the application of computational techniques in the design of organocatalysts along with prediction and control of catalytic processes, with a direct impact on the development of products with different applications.
Ivan Huc
Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich
Ivan Huc is a full Professor at the Department of Pharmacy of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich (Germany). Prior to his appointment at LMU he was a group leader, as CNRS researcher then as research director, at the European Institute of Chemistry and Biology in Bordeaux, France, from 1998 until 2017. He studied chemistry at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris, France and obtained his doctorate from the Univ. of Paris VI in 1994 for work performed at the ENS and at MIT in Cambridge, USA. He then did a post-doc and worked as a research associate at the University of Strasbourg from 1995 until 1998.
His group focuses the design, synthesis and characterization of aromatic foldamers and their applications including pharmacological aspects.
S.S.V Ramasastry
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, India
Dr Ramasastry obtained Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences in 2005 from the Department of Organic Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (India), under the supervision of Prof. A. Srikrishna. He then pursued postdoctoral studies with Prof. Carlos F. Barbas, III at The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego (USA). After briefly working in industry, he became Assistant Professor in 2011 and then Associate Professor in 2017 at the Department of Chemical Sciences, IISER Mohali.
His research interests include the development of sustainable and atom economic reactions via organophosphine catalysis, palladium-catalyzed allylic alkylation reactions, one-pot cascade transformations employing sulfur ylides, and applying these strategies in the synthesis of bioactive natural products and pharmaceutically important compounds.
Corinna Schindler
University of Michigan, USA
Corinna Schindler was born and raised in Schwaebisch Hall, Germany. As an undergraduate at the Technical University of Munich, she worked in the area of organometallic chemistry, before completing her diploma thesis under the supervision of K. C. Nicolaou at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla. She then joined the Carreira group at ETH Zurich for her Ph.D., before accepting a postdoctoral position with Eric N. Jacobsen at Harvard University. In 2013 she moved to her current faculty as an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan.
Currently, her research lab in Michigan focuses primarily on developing new synthetic methodologies to access biologically active structures.
Judy I-Chia Wu
University of Houston, USA
Judy is a physical organic chemist and currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Houston. She received her Ph.D. in 2011 from the University of Georgia from Professor Paul Schleyer. Her current research interests span topics in ground and excited-state aromaticity and antiaromaticity, photochemistry, supramolecular chemistry, and enzyme catalysis.