Confirmed Speakers

Phil Baran was born in 1977 in Denville, New Jersey. He received his B.S. in chemistry from NYU in 1997, his Ph.D. at The Scripps Research Institute in 2001, and from 2001-2003 he was an NIH-postdoctoral fellow at Harvard. His independent career began at Scripps in the summer of 2003. He currently holds the Darlene Shiley Chair in Chemistry. Phil has published over 180 scientific articles and has been the recipient of several ACS awards such as the Corey (2015), Pure Chemistry (2010), Fresenius (2006), and Nobel Laureate Signature (2003), and several international distinctions such as the Hirata Gold Medal and Mukaiyama Prize (Japan), the RSC award in Synthesis (UK), and the Sackler Prize (Israel). In 2013 he was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, in 2015 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 2016 he was awarded the Blavatnik National Award, and most recently, in 2017, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, USA. He has delivered hundreds of lectures around the world and consults for numerous companies such as Bristol-Myers Squibb (since late 2005), Boehringer-Ingelheim, AstraZeneca, DuPont and TEVA, and is a scientific advisory board member for Eisai, Abide, and AsymChem. In 2016 he was appointed as an Associate Editor for the Journal of the American Chemical Society. He co-founded Sirenas Marine Discovery (2012) and Vividion Therapeutics (2016) and in 2013 he co-authored The Portable Chemist’s Consultant, an interactive book published on the iBooks store along with his graduate class in Heterocyclic Chemistry (viewable for free by anyone on iTunes University). Outside of the lab, Phil enjoys spending time with his wife Ana and three young children (Lucia, Leah, and Manuel).

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Charles Jiao is a Global Product Specialist at IKA Works, Inc., the USA subsidiary of IKA. He is also a Professional Scientific Collaborator at the prestigious Scripps Research Institute, representing IKA.

Charles pursued his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Jilin University, located in Jilin, China. Later, he went to the United States to continue his education and obtained a Master's degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Charles Jiao's expertise has helped him establish himself as a leader in the field of electrosynthesis, and his collaboration with the Scripps Research Institute has further solidified his reputation. His dedication to the field has helped drive scientific progress and technological advancements, making him an inspiration to aspiring scientists and engineers worldwide.

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Greta Klejborowska graduated in Biological Chemistry from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in 2015. She joined Professor Adam Huczyński's research group in 2012 for her Bachelor's project and continued her research focused on the derivatization of natural products during her Master's and PhD projects under his supervision. During her PhD studies, she completed two international research stays with Professor Hans Börner (Humboldt University, Germany, Erasmus+) and Professor Iwao Ojima (Stony Brook University, United States), funded by the National Science Centre in Poland after a successful grant application in an ETIUDA call for PhD candidates. In 2021, she joined Professor Koen Augustyns' group, where she continues to work on ferroptosis inhibitors as an MSCA postdoctoral fellow. In addition to her academic work, Greta worked as a senior organic chemist in a small start-up in Poland for a year. She is a co-author of 17 scientific publications, holds 3 patents, has actively participated in 18 scientific conferences, and is also involved in science communication.

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Paz Yanez-Murillo graduated in Business Science and holds an MSc in Internationalization (Economic, Legal, and Political Aspects), both from the University of Barcelona. In 2009, after a 3-year professional adventure in the industry as a business developer in the IT sector, Paz joined the academic community to support international R&D collaborative actions as grants manager at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. In 2015, she moved to Belgium to join the Grants Office of the Research, Innovation and Valorization Department at the University of Antwerp, where she holds the role of EU-funding expert and provides decentralized support to senior professors who succeed in attracting European Funding. Since 2018, Paz is particularly focused on assisting the coordination of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Networks (MSCA-DN) – formerly called Innovative Training Networks (MSCA-ITN). In the role of the project manager of MSCA-DNs, she has developed a solid knowledge of the regulatory framework of the Research Executive Agency and manages three consortia in parallel.

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Phil Baran was born in 1977 in Denville, New Jersey. He received his B.S. in chemistry from NYU in 1997, his Ph.D. at The Scripps Research Institute in 2001, and from 2001-2003 he was an NIH-postdoctoral fellow at Harvard. His independent career began at Scripps in the summer of 2003. He currently holds the Darlene Shiley Chair in Chemistry. Phil has published over 180 scientific articles and has been the recipient of several ACS awards such as the Corey (2015), Pure Chemistry (2010), Fresenius (2006), and Nobel Laureate Signature (2003), and several international distinctions such as the Hirata Gold Medal and Mukaiyama Prize (Japan), the RSC award in Synthesis (UK), and the Sackler Prize (Israel). In 2013 he was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, in 2015 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 2016 he was awarded the Blavatnik National Award, and most recently, in 2017, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, USA. He has delivered hundreds of lectures around the world and consults for numerous companies such as Bristol-Myers Squibb (since late 2005), Boehringer-Ingelheim, AstraZeneca, DuPont and TEVA, and is a scientific advisory board member for Eisai, Abide, and AsymChem. In 2016 he was appointed as an Associate Editor for the Journal of the American Chemical Society. He co-founded Sirenas Marine Discovery (2012) and Vividion Therapeutics (2016) and in 2013 he co-authored The Portable Chemist’s Consultant, an interactive book published on the iBooks store along with his graduate class in Heterocyclic Chemistry (viewable for free by anyone on iTunes University). Outside of the lab, Phil enjoys spending time with his wife Ana and three young children (Lucia, Leah, and Manuel).

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Charles Jiao is a Global Product Specialist at IKA Works, Inc., the USA subsidiary of IKA. He is also a Professional Scientific Collaborator at the prestigious Scripps Research Institute, representing IKA.

Charles pursued his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Jilin University, located in Jilin, China. Later, he went to the United States to continue his education and obtained a Master's degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Charles Jiao's expertise has helped him establish himself as a leader in the field of electrosynthesis, and his collaboration with the Scripps Research Institute has further solidified his reputation. His dedication to the field has helped drive scientific progress and technological advancements, making him an inspiration to aspiring scientists and engineers worldwide.

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Dr. Kevin Lam received his Ph.D. in Medicinal and Synthetic Organic Chemistry from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. His doctoral work explored the use of electrochemistry and photochemistry as green alternatives to activate organic molecules. This work resulted in the development of a new radical-based deoxygenation reaction (the Lam-Marko reaction).
After his Ph.D., he moved to the University of Vermont (UVM). His research focused on applying analytical/physical electrochemistry alongside spectroscopy to study the complex redox behaviour of organometallic compounds.
This work bolstered the use of weakly coordinating electrolytes/solvents as an electrochemical medium to allow for the generation and characterisation of highly reactive and unstable 17e- organometallic radical-cations. Additional work at UVM led to the pioneering of a new method to modify electrode surfaces through an ethynyl linkage. The covalent attachment of molecules to an electrode surface is fundamental to the field of molecular electronics and numerous material applications.
Recently, Kevin accepted a Reader position in Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Greenwich in the U.K. where he continues his interdisciplinary research in the field of synthetic and molecular electrochemistry.

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Lucia Tamborini is Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Milan. She graduated in 2004 in Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Technologies at the University of Milan, and, in 2007, she received her PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the same University. In 2006-2007, she was a visiting PhD student in Prof Ley’s group at the University of Cambridge. In 2014, she received the Farmindustria Prize for the excellence in medicinal chemistry research. Her recent research activities are mainly focused on the development of sustainable synthetic methodologies based on the use of flow reactors combined with immobilized reagents, enzymes and scavengers, for the preparation of biologically active compounds. Since 2006, she published 86 papers in highly qualified international journals.

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