Thanks to the WelT grant we recently obtained, we are now looking for three new members for our team here at CiTOS! Two PhD student and one Postdoc position are currently open.

The goal of this project is to decrease the reliance on trial-and-error approaches to chemistry by using quantum mechanics computations to obtain a priori knowledge of a chemical reaction. This project brings together computational modeling to generate initial data, and machine learning to home in on an effective prediction model for reactivity. This model will be used to predict optimal reaction conditions, which will then be tested using a microfluidic flow reactor. Experiments will be conducted on an in-house automated platform equipped with inline monitoring. This approach will be applied to novel synthetic routes, for which there is no existing data, to showcase how novel, more efficient synthetic routes can be developed with a minimal number of experiments through the combination of these disciplines.

More details on the candidature can be found at:

• PhD: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/130142
• Postdoc: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/130175 

We’re happy to have Nicole Torres, from the University of Puerto Rico, here at CiTOS.
Nicole is part of an FDA-funded collaboration that bring together the University of Liege (CiTOS), the University of Puerto Rico, MIT and Northeastern University.

On the side of CiTOS, Loïc and Hubert are in charge of advancing this project. And this month, we’ve had the opportunity to have Nicole here familiarizing herself with the synthesis component of the project. Later on, Nicole will be in charge of the implementation of process analytical technology and chemometrics.

We’re happy for this short stay, and look forward to having Nicole back here in 2024.

Last month CordenPharma announced its new Technology & Science Advisory Board. The advisory board was established to advance CordonPharma’s capabilities in the development and manufacturing of pharmaceuticals. Eight worldwide leading experts were selected to provide insight on new trends and technologies. JC is on board due to his expertise in flow chemistry, and in particular, in multistep flow processes at the lab and pilot scale. We’re happy to announce this new collaboration and look forward to advancing flow chemistry in the Pharma industry!

For further information, check the CordenPharma website.

June 30 brought us the end of semester activity. CiTOS members brought food from their countries to origin to share with the rest. Argentina, Poland, Bari, and Venice, Portugal, UK and Belgium all had a small representation on our table. Overall, it was a wonderful day, full of fun, games, good food, and sun.

With June comes summer and the time for the yearly Chemistry Day here at the University of Liege.
CiTOS doctoral students had the opportunity to share posters explaining their work to other members of the faculty, and to learn about the research being conducted here at ULg by other PhD students. Our postdoc Anita gave a great talk explaining her journey to ULg and her advancements in nitrosocarbonyl chemistry. And the entire day ended with an excellent BBQ shared with all our dear colleagues.

Very happy to officially announce that we were granted a prestigious Advanced Wel-T grant of 1.4 M EUR over 4 years. It feeds upon preliminary work preformed by PhD student Pauline Bianchi and will strengthen the automation/computation/Machine Learning ambitions at CiTOS. A huge congratulations to JC, and also to the team at CiTOS, for all the great work leading up to this.

A shout out to Dr. Christophe Detrembleur from the CERM for an analogous grant obtained for the development of polyurethane foams.

In search of more info? Check the announcement.

We celebrate today the final event in Elias’ journey to becoming a PhD. After defending his PhD thesis at Chimie ParisTech – PSL, Elias has become the latest postdoc to join CiTOS as part of and industrial collaboration project. His experience in flow chemistry will certainly be an important part of advancing the growing number of industrial projects here at CiTOS.

We congratulate Elias in his latest achievement and are happy to have him working amongst us now.

We’re proud to share that team CiTOS was well represented at the Flow Chemistry Europe conference 2023.

JC showed us how to “Make nitroso reagents great again“; Loïc presented a poster on the preparation of APIs from bio-based materials; and Anita took home a poster prize for her work on the spatiotemporally-controlled photogeneration of nitrosocarbonyl compounds. And the entire team had a wonderful time learning of all the excellent work being done on flow chemistry throughout the world.

Tuesday, May 23rd was a very exciting day here at CiTOS. We had the visit of 20 students of the Université du troisième âge (U3A) at our facilities. All CiTOS members made their best efforts to show our dear visitors the best of our work and the future of chemistry research here at the lab. The sincere interest and attention of these amazing students we really encouraging and inspired us to keep doing our best to keep  sharing the passion of moving science forward.

A few photos are the best evidence of the great day shared between the U3A and CiTOS.

Spring at CiTOS resulted in the arrival of another postdoctoral researcher,
Hubert Hellwig! Hubert is with us since the beginning of April. He defended his PhD at the University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland). He also worked for 2.5 years at Adamed Pharma S.A., where he began his adventure with flow chemistry. Hubert’s research focuses on the project supported by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), “Continuous Drug Substance Manufacturing from Biomass-derived Building Blocks”. He will work on the development of automated continuous flow synthesis systems for the production of active pharmaceutical substances.