Saverio Florio received his ‘Laurea’ in Chemistry at the University of Bari (Italy). He has been Assistant Professor and Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Bari till 1982, Full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Lecce (1986–90) and University of Bari, chair of Organic Chemistry (1990–2012).

From 1994 until 2014, he has been Director of ‘Consorzio Interuniversitario: Metodologie e Processi Innovativi di Sintesi’ (CINMPIS) 1994-2014 and President of the Division of Organic Chemistry of the Italian Chemical Society from 1997until 2001. He then became Vice President of the Italian Chemical Society (2007–10).

Saverio is member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Ischia IASOC School, chairman of Tramech (Transmediterranean Colloquium on Heterocyclic Chemistry) and of ECHC (European Colloquium on Heterocyclic Chemistry).

His research interests are concerned with mechanistic studies, stereochemistry, and asymmetric synthesis of small-ring heterocycles, chemistry and structural features of oxiranyl and aziridinyl anions applied to organic synthesis.

He published more than 200 papers.

He has received the following awards: the Ziegler-Natta Lecture’ from the German Chemical Society (GDCh) in 2005; the ‘Angelo Mangini Gold Medal’ from the Division of Organic Chemistry of the Italian Chemical Society in 2007; Honorary Member of the Israel Chemical Society, Tel Aviv, 2011; Silver Plate from Consortium CINMPIS in 2014.

Carsten Bolm earned his doctoral degree in 1987 from the University of Marburg, Germany. After postdoctoral training at MIT, Cambridge (USA), he worked in Basel (Switzer¬land) to obtain his habilitation. In 1993 he became Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Marburg (Germany), and since 1996 he has a chair of Organic Chemistry at RWTH Aachen University (Germany). In 2012 he accepted an Adjunct Professorship at WIT (Wuhan Institute of Technology), China, and since 2016 he is Honorary Professor at Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China. He published >500 articles and has been serving as Associate Editor for the Journal of Organic Chemistry since 2008.

Nicolas Blanchard is the head of the « Biomolecules, Synthesis and Methods » team (bsm.unistra.fr) within the LIMA Laboratory (lima.unistra.fr, CNRS-UHA-Unistra, Mulhouse). Current research interests of Nicolas' group encompass the development of synthetic processes including heterocyclic chemistry, metal-mediated transformations, pericyclic reactions and the synthesis of bioactive natural products. He received his Ph.D. in 2000 (Paris 6 University, J. Cossy). After postdoctoral studies with J.F. Nomant (Paris 6 University) and W. Roush (Michigan University, USA), he joined the CNRS in 2002.

Martin Smith studied at the University of Oxford as both an undergraduate and graduate student (with Professor George W. J. Fleet). He subsequently moved to the University of Cambridge as the Drapers Company Research Fellow to work with Professor Steven V. Ley CBE FRS. He started his independent career as a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the University of Cambridge before moving to his current position in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford in October 2008. His group works on synthesis, structure and enantioselective catalysis, with a particular focus on reactions mediated by chiral ammonium cations.

Prof. Ion Grosu was born in Cluj Napoca, România in 1955. He received the PhD degree from Babeş-Bolyai University in 1994 under the supervision of Prof. Sorin Mager. His professional carrier is connected to Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj Napoca where he became lecturer in 1990 and then, in 1995, associate professor. Since 1997 he is professor of Organic Chemistry at the same university and starting with 1999 PhD advisor. He is leader of the Group of Organic and Supramolecular Chemistry. He was invited researcher and/or professor at the universities of Rouen, Würzburg, Angers, Montpellier and Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Starting with 2014 he is Corresponding Member of the Romanian Academy. His research areas are focused on self-assembled architectures, macrocycles, cyclophanes, cryptands, molecular chirality, conformational analysis of saturated heterocycles and organic solar cells.

1992-1995: Undergraduate studies at Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris, France.
1995-1998: Master and doctoral studies under the supervision of Prof. Jean-Marie Lehn, Collège de France, Paris, France.
1999:Post-doctoral position under the supervision of Prof. K. C. Nicolaou, Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, USA.
1999-2006: Group leader and CNRS “Chargé de Recherche”, Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
2006-2015: Full Professor at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (ICBMS), Villeurbanne, France.
2009-2014: Junior member of the “Institut Universitaire de France”.
From 08.2015: Full Professor at the University of Basel, Department of Chemistry, Switzerland.

Awards
- Young Professor award from the French Chemical Society, Organic Chemistry Division, 2010.
- CNRS Bronze Medal, 2005.
- Claude Dufour Prize in Prospective organic chemistry, 2007.
- Thieme Journal Prize, 2007.


Achievements
- 81 publications (4500 citations), 2 patents, 4 book chapters.
- 141 invited lectures and seminars.

Vittorio Pace (born 1981) - since March 2020 - is Full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Turin. He graduated in Pharmacy in 2005 from the University of Perugia and subsequently, received the PhD in Chemical Sciences cum laude from the Complutense University of Madrid in 2010 working with Profs. Alcántara and Sinisterra. After postdoctoral training at Vienna (Prof. Holzer, 2010-2011), Manchester (Prof. Procter, 2011-2013) and Stockholm (Prof. Olofsson, 2013-2014), he obtained a group leader position at the University of Vienna in 2014, before holding the Tenure-Track Professorship in Drug Synthesis at the University of Vienna between 2018 and 2020. In 2016 he received the Habilitation in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Vienna. He received several awards including the Ciamician Medal of the Italian Chemical Society, the Caglioti Prize of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Young Investigator Award of the Faculty of Life Sciences at Vienna, the La Roche-Hoffmann Prize of the European Society of Medicinal Chemistry, the Viennese Innitzer Award in 2017, the Habilitation Award of the Austrian Chemical Society in 2019 and the Thieme Journal Award in 2020. His research core is represented by the design and development of new synthetic concepts with functionalized organometallic reagents.

Sandrine Piguel received her Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Paris Sud in France in 1998. She worked on the total synthesis of enediynes under the supervision of Dr. D. S. Grierson at the Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles. In 1999, she joined the group of Pr. M. Lautens at the University of Toronto as a post-doctoral fellow (Prize from the Fondation Bettencourt-Schueller), developing palladium-catalyzed domino reactions with C-H bonds functionalization. After a short stay with Pr. T. Wirth at the University of Basel, she was appointed assistant professor at the University of Rennes 1 in 2001 working on the synthesis of proteasome inhibitors. In 2006, she moved to University of Paris Sud and joined the Institut Curie (Orsay, France) where she became Associate Professor in 2010. Her research interests include medicinal chemistry in the field of small molecule kinase inhibitors for cancer therapy but also new synthetic methodologies in particular C-H bond functionalization of nitrogen-containing fused heterocycles.

Syuzanna received her Master's degree in Chemistry from Yerevan State University, Armenia, after which she moved to Moscow, Russia, in 1999 to undertake her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Belokon. Syuzanna did her postdoctoral stay with Prof. Feringa (2003-2006) and in 2007 Syuzanna joined the Process&Development department at Janssen Pharmaceutica, Belgium. Syuzanna started her independent research career in 2010, when she was appointed as a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen. In 2013 she was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor and in 2018 to full professor at the University of Groningen. Syuzanna’s research activities include synthesis, organometallic reactions, catalysis, enantioselective transformations and autocatalysis. Syuzanna's work has been recognized by two major awards, namely the KNCV Gold Medal 2016 from the Royal Dutch Chemical Society, and the Royal Society for Chemistry's Homogeneous Catalysis Award in 2017.

Thomas Carell (Ph. D) was raised in Bad-Salzuflen (Germany). He studied chemistry at the Universities of Münster and Heidelberg. In 1993 he obtained his doctorate with Prof. H. A. Staab at the Max Planck Institute of Medical Research in Heidelberg. After postdoctoral training with Prof. J. Rebek at MIT (Cambridge, USA) in 1993-1995, Thomas Carell moved to the ETH Zürich (Switzerland) as an assistant professor to start independent research. He obtained his habilitation (tenure) in 2000. He subsequently accepted a full professor position for Organic Chemistry at the Philipps-Universität in Marburg (Germany). In 2004 Thomas Carell moved to the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich (Germany), where he is heading a research group centered around chemical biology. The current focus is to analyze the chemistry of epigenetic programming in DNA and RNA. Thomas Carell founded the company Baseclick GmBH in 2008. He is a member of the National German Academy, Leopoldina and of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a recipient of the Cross of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany. Thomas Carell obtained the Leibniz award from the DFG in 2003 (comparable to an HHMI investigator in the USA) and an ERC advanced grant in 2017. Thomas Carell is the speaker of the Excellence Cluster (EXC114) on protein chemistry and of the collaborative research center (SFB1309) on chemical epigenetics. Since 2019 he is a board member of BASF SE.

Prof. Olga García Mancheño, professor for organic chemistry at the University of Münster (WWU, obtained her PhD in Chemistry in 2005 at the University Autonomous of Madrid under the supervision of Prof. J.C. Carretero. After her postdoc in the group of Prof. C. Bolm at RWTH Aachen, she carried out her habilitation at the WWU Münster. In 2013, she was appointed at the University of Regensburg and, in 2017, at the WWU Münster as professor for organic chemistry. Her research aim at developing new, efficient synthetic methodologies in organic chemistry, with especial focus on the design of novel catalytic systems and their application in homogenous catalysis, including photocatalysis and asymmetric anion-binding catalysis.

Li-Wen Xu was born in 1976. After his undergraduate studies at Anhui Normal University, he received his PhD degree in Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2004. And From 2003 to 2006, he carried out an independent research career as an associate research professor at Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics (CAS). He spent one year (2005-2006) as a postdoctoral fellow at the Université du Maine and CNRS. From 2007 to 2009, He was a research fellow at Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore, and was a JSPS fellow at The University of Tokyo. He was appointed as full professor at Key Laboratory of Organosilicon Chemistry and Material Technology of MOE, Hangzhou Normal University, in 2009. Now he is the director of Key Laboratory of Organosilicon Chemistry and Material Technology of MOE. He has authored about more than 150 research publications and ten reviews or book chapters with a total H-index = 37, and was awarded the Second Class of Zhejiang Provincial Prize for Natural Sciences and The Thieme Chemistry Journal Awardee in 2014. His current scientific interests are focused on organosilicon chemistry (SiMOS), asymmetric synthesis mediated by homogeneous organometallic and organic catalysts.

Laurence Grimaud has been a Research Director at the CNRS at the department of Chemistry of the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) of Paris in a joined laboratory with Sorbonne University (Laboratoire des Biomolécules) since october 2016. From 1993-1996, she studied Chemistry at the ENS of Paris. From 1996-1999, she undertook her PhD in synthetic organic chemistry in the group of Dr J. Prunet at the Ecole Polytechnique (France). In 1999, she joined the research group of Pr. L. El Kaïm at ENSTA-ParisTech in Paris, working on studies on isocyanide chemistry and multicomponent reactions applied to heterocyclic synthesis. In 2012, she joined the research group of Drs. A. Jutand and C. Amatore at the ENS as a CNRS researcher. Since 2016, she is a CNRS research director leading a research program at the interface of synthetic organic chemistry, electrochemistry and mechanistic studies focusing mainly on metal catalysis.

Sylvain Oudeyer received his PhD (Paris 12 university) in 2003 working on the design of new chemical and electrochemical methodologies for the synthesis of small rings. Then, he joined the Dr J. Royer’s group (Paris 5 University) for a postdoctoral fellowship on the Yb(OTf )3-catalyzed vinylogous Mannich reaction. In 2004, he held a postdoctoral position where he worked on the asymmetric synthesis of biological active molecules (Pr H.-P. Husson, Paris 5 University). After a postdoctoral position with Roquette frères as industrial partner, he joined the COBRA laboratory (Rouen University) in 2006 as assistant professor working in the field of asymmetric organocatalysis. In 2015, he obtained his habilitation (HDR).

Tatiana Besset obtained her PhD in chemistry (2009) at Grenoble University with Dr Greene. Then, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Prof. Glorius and pursued in 2011 in the Reek’s group. Since 2012, she is a CNRS Associate Researcher in the “Fluorinated Biomolecules Synthesis” group in Rouen. In 2017, she was awarded an ERC Starting Grant. In 2018, she defended her habilitation, received the CNRS Bronze medal and the “J.-P. Sauvage” prize (SCF). Her research involves the design of new transformations involving transition-metal catalysis (C-H bond activation) and the development of new strategies in organofluorine chemistry.

Berit Olofsson studied Chemical Engineering at Lund University, and got her PhD at KTH (Stockholm) on asymmetric synthesis in 2002. She subsequently went to Bristol University, UK for a post doc on total synthesis with Prof. Aggarwal in 2003-2004. Returning to Sweden, she became assistant supervisor in the group of Prof. Bäckvall at Stockholm University (SU). She started her independent career at SU in 2006, and was promoted to Professor in 2013, and is the Dean of Chemistry since 2019. She was recently appointed a ChemPubSoc Europe Fellow, is the vice President of the organic chemistry division of EuCheMS, and also the vice President of the International Committee of ESOC 2021 (the European Symposium of Organic Chemistry). She is also a board member of Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. and several other Wiley journals. She is an internationally leading experts in hypervalent iodine chemistry, with focus on development of synthetic methodology towards iodine(III) reagents and their application in metal-free and sustainable methodology for organic synthesis. She is a member of the international scientific committee of the International Conference on Hypervalent Iodine Chemistry (ICHIC) since 2010 and recently served as the guest editor of a Patai book on Hypervalent Halogen Chemistry. Website link: http://www.organ.su.se/bo/

Christopher Vanderwal received a B.Sc. degree in Biochemistry (1995) and an M.Sc. degree in Chemistry (1998) from the University of Ottawa. He then moved to the Scripps Research Institute for doctoral studies in the group of Professor Erik Sorensen. After obtaining his Ph.D. in 2003, Chris joined the group of Professor Eric Jacobsen at Harvard University as a Jane Coffin Childs postdoctoral associate. In 2005, Chris began his independent academic career at the University of California, Irvine. In 2011, Chris was promoted with tenure to Associate Professor and was named a UCI Chancellor’s Faculty Fellow, and in 2013, he was promoted to Professor of Chemistry, and he was recently appointed Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Chris’s group focuses on the synthesis of complex natural products, including alkaloids, terpenoids, and polyhalogenated secondary metabolites. They develop target-specific but potentially broadly applicable methods en route to the natural product goals, and frequently engage in post-synthesis collaborative experiments to investigate biological activity of the target and synthetic analogs.

Magnus Rueping studied at the Technical University of Berlin, Trinity College Dublin and ETH Zürich, where he completed his diploma thesis under the direction of Professor Dieter Seebach. He stayed in the Seebach group and obtained his Ph.D. from the ETH in 2002 working on the synthesis and structural and biological aspects of oligo( hydroxybutanoates) and of - and -peptides. He then moved to Harvard University to work with Professor David A. Evans on enantioselective transition-metal catalysis. In August 2004 he was directly appointed as Associate Professor (C3), the Degussa Endowed Professorship of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, at the University Frankfurt. After four years in Frankfurt he decided to accept a Chair and Full Professorship of Organic Chemistry at RWTH Aachen University and is currently Professor of Chemical Sciences at KAUST. He is recipient of several national and international awards and prizes and has been selected as Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher for the consecutive years 2014-2019. Following an ERC Starting Grant on Biomimetic Organocatalysis he was also awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant on Sustainable Light-Driven Catalytic Chemistry. His group’s research activities are directed toward the development and simplification of synthetic catalytic methodology and technology, and their application in the rapid synthesis of diverse functional natural and unnatural molecules, not only to address chemical, biological and physical problems but also to generate new molecules with potentially interesting properties.

Guillaume Vincent graduated in 2002 from the Ecole Supérieure de Chimie Physique et Electronique de Lyon (CPE Lyon). As part of this degree, he spent one year (2000-2001) at the Dupont Pharmaceuticals Company in Wilmingtion (USA) working with Dr. Patrick Y. S. Lam. In 2002, he also obtained a Master of Science degree in organic chemistry from Université Lyon I with a stay in the group of Prof. Marco A. Ciufolini. He completed his PhD in 2005 under the supervision of Prof. Ciufolini. He then joined, in 2005-2006, Prof. Robert M. Williams at Colorado State University as a postdoctoral associate. At the beginning of 2007 he returned to France in the group of Prof. Max Malacria and Prof. Louis Fensterbank at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 as a postdoctoral associate. Finally, at the end of 2007 he was appointed “Chargé de Recherche” by the CNRS at the Institut de Chimie Moléculaire et des Matériaux d’Orsay (ICMMO) of Université Paris-Sud (which is now Université Paris-Saclay) working on nitroso Diels-Alder cycloadditions and the total synthesis of natural products. He launched in 2011 an independent research program towards the synthetic applications and understanding of unusual reactivities of the indole nucleus. He was promoted CNRS “Directeur de Recherche” in October 2019.

Karol Grela, F CSPE was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1970. He received a Master degree from Warsaw University of Technology in 1994, and received his PhD degree from the Institute of Organic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, in 1998. As Alexader von Humboldt Scholar, he spent one year in the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, just in time to be present at the blooming of metathesis methodology in the laboratories of Professor Alois Fürstner. Next, he returned to Warsaw, and after completing his Habilitation in 2003, at the Institute of Organic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences where he led a small but very efficient research group of dedicated co-workers. In 2008 he was promoted to Full Professor. Since 2008, he is also a Director of newly formed group at the Biological and Chemical Research Centre of the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Warsaw. His synthetic research focuses on improving synthetic efficiency of organic reactions, organometallic chemistry and catalysis. His work with metals involves the development of new catalysts and conditions for alkene and alkyne metathesis. Prof. Grela was awarded some prizes including the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (1999), Maria Curie and Wilhelm Klemm Lectureship of the German Chemical Society (2007), Prime Minister of Polish Government Prizes (1999, 2004 & 2010), the Prize of Foundation for Polish Science (2014) and French Chemical Society Prize (2016). He is the member of Editorial boards of Chemistry–A European Journal, European Journal of Organic Chemistry, ChemSelect, and a fellow of ChemPubSoc Europe.

András Kotschy is the managing director of the Servier Research Institute of Medicinal Chemistry in Budapest, Hungary. After completing his PhD degree in 1995 he joined the staff of Eötvös Loránd University where he rose through the ranks to associate professor also completing his habilitation and obtaining a DSc degree. His research interests included the development of new synthetic methodologies, transition metal catalysis in particular, and their application to heterocyclic chemistry. In 2007 he joined the newly established Servier Research Institute of Medicinal Chemistry as director of the Discovery Chemistry division and in 2015 he became managing director of the institute. Since 2007 he has been in charge of multiple research projects in oncology and metabolism. András Kotschy is the author of 60 refereed publications that received over 1500 citations, 1 book, 2 book chapters, and 16 patents. He is also the recipient of multiple scientific awards and fellowships.

Rebecca Goss is a bioorganic chemist/chemical biologist with research interests in the biosynthesis of natural products at the chemical and genetic level. Research within the group focuses on natural products with important medicinal properties and in understanding how biosynthetically intriguing motifs within these compounds are assembled. From this vantage point the group harness individual enzymes as convenient tools for organic synthesis, and employ a combination of synthetic chemistry and synthetic biology to harness entire biosynthetic pathways in order to enable expeditious access to libraries of medicinally relevant compounds. These libraries may be used as tools to gain a greater understanding as to how the drug acts at the molecular level within the cell.
Goss has established a national and international reputation presenting >130 invited, plenary and keynote lectures.

Employment Record

Professorship in Biomolecular/Organic Chemistry, University of St Andrews (600 year old University)
2018-
Readership (Associate Professorship) in Biomolecular/Organic Chemistry, University of St Andrews
September 2012 – 2018
Readership in Organic Chemistry, University of East Anglia
January 2012 – September 2012
Senior Lectureship, School of Chemistry, University of East Anglia
December 2010 – January 2012
Lectureship, School of Chemistry, University of East Anglia
July 2005-2010 (Maternity break 2008)
Lectureship, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, University of Exeter
October 2003-June 2005 (Closure of Chemistry in Exeter)

Awards and Honours

2003 Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship
2007 awarded the 2006 RSC Meldola Medal “distinguished for excellent contributions at the interface of organic chemistry and molecular biology”
2011 Thieme Chemistry Journal Award
2011 JSP award to participate at the Burgenstock Stereochemistry meeting
2013 Natural Product Report Emerging Researcher Lectureship
2014 ERC consolidator award

Antonio Salomone graduated in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technology at University of Bari in 1999 under the supervision of Prof. S. Florio. In 2004 he received his PhD discussing a thesis on the synthetic utility of functionalized organolithiums in asymmetric synthesis. From 2005 to 2009, he applied a postdoctoral position working on the synthesis of chiral organolithiums in the stereoselective synthesis of bioactive molecules under the supervision of Prof. S. Florio at University of Bari. From 2010 to 2015 he worked, as postdoctoral fellow, at University of Bari in collaboration with Prof. V. Capriati and Prof. S. Florio, leading many studies on the kinetic and spectroscopic characterization of labile organometallic intermediates. In 2015 he moved to University of Salento as Assistant Professor and started his collaboration with Prof. L. Troisi working at the Pd-catalysed carbonylations in the in the multicomponent synthesis of heterocycles. In 2018 he became Associate Professor in Organic Chemistry at the University of Salento. His current research activity is related to the development of transition metal catalysis in Deep Eutectic Solvents.

Saverio Florio received his ‘Laurea’ in Chemistry at the University of Bari (Italy). He has been Assistant Professor and Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Bari till 1982, Full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Lecce (1986–90) and University of Bari, chair of Organic Chemistry (1990–2012).

From 1994 until 2014, he has been Director of ‘Consorzio Interuniversitario: Metodologie e Processi Innovativi di Sintesi’ (CINMPIS) 1994-2014 and President of the Division of Organic Chemistry of the Italian Chemical Society from 1997until 2001. He then became Vice President of the Italian Chemical Society (2007–10).

Saverio is member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Ischia IASOC School, chairman of Tramech (Transmediterranean Colloquium on Heterocyclic Chemistry) and of ECHC (European Colloquium on Heterocyclic Chemistry).

His research interests are concerned with mechanistic studies, stereochemistry, and asymmetric synthesis of small-ring heterocycles, chemistry and structural features of oxiranyl and aziridinyl anions applied to organic synthesis.

He published more than 200 papers.

He has received the following awards: the Ziegler-Natta Lecture’ from the German Chemical Society (GDCh) in 2005; the ‘Angelo Mangini Gold Medal’ from the Division of Organic Chemistry of the Italian Chemical Society in 2007; Honorary Member of the Israel Chemical Society, Tel Aviv, 2011; Silver Plate from Consortium CINMPIS in 2014.