Guillaume has set off to the USA, in the Abolhasani Lab, at the North Carolina State University (NCSU). He’ll be working for 3 months there on the self-optimizing reactions through Bayesian optimization applied to CdSe quantum dots synthesis. We’re very happy for this great new opportunity, we wish Guillaume the much success and eagerly wait for his return to CiTOS.
Romain was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Belgian American Education Foundation (B.A.E.F).
The BAEF grant will trigger his relocation to Stanford within the research group of Prof. Robert M. Waymouth. Congrats, Romain !
Jean-Christophe and members from the lab were glad to join over 700 delegates at the Belgian Organic Synthesis Symposium (BOSS) in Namur. A terrific line-up, a couple of intense poster sessions where Pauline, Romain and Martin had a chance to discuss their research, and a great opportunity to meet chemists from the synthesis and flow communities!
Thanks to the organisers and save the date for the next edition of the BOSS in July 2024, which we’ll be happy to host in Liège.
Sadly, on April 15th, it was time to say goodbye to Carlotta. She has since returned to the Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia (Venice, Italy) where she continues to work on her dissertation project, under the guidance of Dr. Maurizio Selva. We wish her continued success!
You can keep updated on her progress through ResearchGate.
Mathilde Quertenmont has just joined the team as a post-doctoral researcher, taking over a project in partnership with Oril (Servier). Mathilde completed her undergraduate and post-graduate studies at Université catholique de Louvain, in collaboration with UCB Pharma, in 2020, before working as an R&D engineer for Minakem. She will bring to the team a strong expertise in various areas of synthesis, including total synthesis, photo- and electrochemistry and organometallic catalysis.
Welcome to CiTOS, Mathilde! Continue reading Welcome to Mathilde – 2022, April
Members of the lab participated in the annual meeting of the SRC (Société Royale des Chimistes). This year, the meeting took place in Liège, around the theme of “Scientific communication”.
It was a nice opportunity to meet chemists from across Belgium, as well as present and discuss our research. Romain, Pauline and Isaline were very proud to showcase posters on phosphate polymerisation, nitrosoarenes and olefin carboxylation.
The group is back from the 2022 Flow Chemistry Summit in Boston. A good opportunity for JC to present the group’s work on APIs synthesis in his talk “Accelerating the Production of Psychotropic Drugs with Flow Technology“, with Diana also presenting her work on modafinil recently published. Also a great chance for JC for a trip down memory lane, as well as for meeting new people in a vibrant community!
We thank Paul Watts and SelectBIO for the invitation and organisation.
It’s an exciting day at the CiTOS, with another one of our members heading out to work at MIT! Thomas will be working at the Myerson lab in a postdoctoral position in collaboration with Takeda Pharmaceutical company.
We Dr. Toupy the best of luck in Boston and in science!
Victor’s last PhD project, conducted along with Diana, is just out in Green Chemistry: “A Continuous Flow Generator of Organic Hypochlorites for the Neutralization of Chemical Warfare Agent Simulants”.
The paper describes a protocol for the neutralisation of sulfur-based, “mustard gas”-type agents using alkyl hypochlorites. The procedure entails the generation of tBuOCl, which promotes the near-instantaneous oxidative degradation of the Chemical Warfare Agents upon addition. The setup relies on affordable reagents and solvents, was demonstrated on the mesofluidic scane and displays a higher efficiency (Space Time Yield = 3.74 kg L-1 h-1) than similar neutralisation methods (based on singlet oxygen or oxone).
This work builds upon previous investigations on the neutralisation of Chemical Warfare Agents in our group and Julien Legros’.
Congratulations to lead authors Diana and Victor as well as co-authors Thomas Bernard!
Concurrently with Thomas’s PhD defense, his two latest papers have been published in OPRD and J Flow Chem!
In his Organic Process Research & Development article “Intensified Continuous Flow Michaelis–Arbuzov Rearrangement toward Alkyl Phosphonates”, Thomas revisits the production of alkyl phosphonate building blocks using a ThalesNano Phoenix reactor. Tweaking the process conditions allows the valorisation of an inevitable side product. This work, which entails productivities of up to 5 kg/d, provides a scalable route towards aminophosphonic acid derivatives, and fits in with Thomas’ work on aminoacids bioisosteres.
In the Journal of Flow Chemistry paper “Continuous flow organocatalyzed methoxycarbonylation of benzyl alcohol derivatives with dimethyl carbonate”, Thomas and co-author Loïc explore a low-footprint synthesis of benzyl N-hydroxycarbamates, replacing chloroformates with the corresponding benzyl methyl carbonates. The latter are obtained from dimethyl carbonate as a reagent and a solvent, using an organocatalyst to selectively functionalise a range of diversely substituted benzylic alcohols.
Congrats to Thomas for a dazzling finish to his PhD, and to Loïc who is just starting his!
