Ben L. Feringa obtained his PhD degree in 1978 at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands under the guidance of Professor Hans Wynberg. After working as a research scientist at Shell in the Netherlands and the UK, he was appointed lecturer and in 1988 full professor at the University of Groningen and named the Jacobus H. van’t Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Sciences in 2004. He was elected Foreign Honory member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. In 2008 he was appointed Academy Professor and was knighted by Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands. Feringa’s research has been recognized with a number of awards including the Koerber European Science Award (2003), the Spinoza Award (the highest scientific distinction in the Netherlands) (2004), the Prelog gold medal (2005), the Norrish Award in Physical Organic Chemistry of the ACS (2007), the Paracelsus medal (2008), the Chirality medal (2009) and the RSC Organic Stereochemistry Award (2011). Feringa is currently director of the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry and the Center for Systems Chemistry at the University of Groningen. The research interest includes stereochemistry, organic synthesis, asymmetric catalysis, molecular switches and motors, self-assembly and molecular nanosystems.
Peter Kündig graduated from the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich in 1971 and in the same year moved to the University of Toronto where he received his PhD in Chemistry in 1975 (G.A.S. Ozin). Following a postdoctoral stay at the University of Bristol (P. Timms), he started his own research at the University of Geneva, focusing on synthetic and mechanistic organometallic chemistry and on metal mediated and catalyzed reactions in organic synthesis.
Recent research interests focus on
Pd-NHC* catalyzed intramolecular arylations (chiral oxindoles) and on asymmetric Csp3-H activation (indolines)
Development and applications of chiral Fe- and Ru-Lewis acids
Catalytic processes to generate planar chiral metal complexes
He was a member of Executive Board of EuCheMS (2000-2006), and a member of the Editorial Board of Chemical Communications (chair 2008-2011), and is on the Advisory Boards of several international journals. In 2005 he was chair of OMCOS 13 (Geneva) and in 2006 he was scientific program chair for the 1st European Chemistry Congress of EuCheMS (Budapest). He occupied the position of chair of the School of chemistry and biochemistry of the University of Geneva (2000-2006) and was president of the ‘Bürgenstock Conference’ 2010. Presently he is a member of the Platform Chemistry of the Swiss Academy of Sciences and president of the Swiss Chemical Society.
Hisashi Yamamoto (山本 尚 Yamamoto Hisashi) (born July 16, 1943) is an organic chemist and currently a member of the faculty at the University of Chicago.
Born in Kobe, Japan, Yamamoto earned a B.S. at Kyoto University in 1967 and a Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1971. He was a professor at Nagoya University from 1983 until 2002 and has since been a professor within the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago.
His research work is largely in the chemistry of acid catalysts that play an important role in triggering or driving chemical reactions, specifically Lewis and Brønsted acid catalysts used in selective organic synthesis.Yamamoto has authored or co-authored several books on topics in modern synthetic organic chemistry.
Sugiyama’s research interests involve the bioorganic chemistry of nucleic acids. Using the tools of synthetic physical organic chemistry and molecular biology, the Sugiyama group is defining the chemical principles underlying the recognition, reactivity and structure of nucleic acids. There are no other research groups on such a general and fundamental aspect of nucleic acids as a substance.The group utilizes a chemical approach in following areas: Molecular mechanism of DNA modification by DNA base alkylation, hydrogen abstraction and charge transfer. Design of highly efficient sequence-specific DNA acting agents based on understanding of the action mechanism of antitumor antibiotics. Design of unnatural nucleic acid for understanding of nucleic acid structure and function. Development of a method probing DNA local conformation in vivo. The long-range goal is creation of artificial genetic switches for targeted cell differentiation and treatment of many diseases.
Lei Liu graduated from University of Science and Technology of China (1999). He obtained the Ph.D. degree from Columbia University (2004), followed by the post-doctorial research work at Scripps Research Institute (2004-2007). He has joined Tsinghua University since 2007, employed as a professor in the Chemistry Department. His research interest is synthetic bioorganic chemistry with two directions: 1. chemical synthesis and modification of proteins; 2. catalytic synthesis of bioactive small molecules.
Ken-Tsung Wong was born in 1966. In 1989 he received a B.Sc. Degreefrom Fu-Jen Catholic University and a Ph.D. degree from National TaiwanUniversity in 1993. After spending one year at the Univeristy of Illinois atUrbanasChampaign and two years at the Universite´ Louis Pasteur as apostdoctoral associate, he joined the National Taiwan University as anAssistant Professor of Chemistry from 1998. He is a recipient of the TR100sponsored by the Technology Review of MIT. In 1998, he became an assistant Professor at University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, and in 2006, he move to National Taiwan University as a full professor
His research interests include the development of new synthetic methods using organometallic reagents,asymmetric synthesis, and synthesis of conjugated oligomers for optoelectronicmaterials.
- Past speakers