Paul Wender

Paul Wender (Yale PhD; Columbia NIH Postdoctoral Fellow) served on the faculty at Harvard University before assuming his current position at Stanford as the Bergstrom Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology (by courtesy, Stanford Medical School). He is an advisor to the Stanford Molecular Imaging Program and the Stanford Human Chemistry Institute (Chem-H), and affiliated with the Bio-X Program, the Center for Molecular Analysis and Design, Quantitative Chemical Biology Program, the Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Cancer Nanotechnology Program, the Molecular Therapeutics Program, and the NIH Biotechnology Training Program. He was a cofounder of CellGate and contributed to the founding of other biotech companies based on his research. He serves on several science advisory boards including the Lilly TB Drug Discovery Initiative, Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology, Sanford-Burnham Institute, Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute, and Institut des Biomolecules Max Mousseron (France). His research involves studies in chemistry, biology, medicine, and materials science with an emphasis on the design, synthesis and mechanism of action of molecules that exhibit unique biological activity and first-in-class therapeutic potential. His group has promoted concepts for green science including the “Ideal Synthesis”, “step economy”, “time economy”, “safetyoriented synthesis” and “function-oriented synthesis”. His group introduced over 25 new reactions, completed the first and/or shortest syntheses of numerous major synthetic and therapeutic targets (including taxol, phorbol, bryostatin, resiniferatoxin), and advanced therapeutic leads and drug delivery systems (e.g., cell-penetrating arginine-rich molecular transporters) into clinical trials. Current research involves computer-based design, new reactions, and synthesis directed at imaging, drug delivery, cancer resistance, immunotherapy, HIV/AIDS eradication, and Alzheimer’s disease. His work is described in >300 publications and >20 issued or pending patents. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences. His work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award, Sloan Fellowship Award, Lilly Grantee Award, ACS Guenther Award, Pfizer Award for Synthetic Organic Chemistry, ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, ICI Stuart Award for Excellence in Chemistry, ACS Cope Scholar Award, National Science Foundation Award for Special Creativity, NIH Merit Awards (1993, 2006), Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung Award, ACS Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods, Wilbur Cross Medal (Yale), honorary doctorate (University of Montpellier, France), 2012 Tetrahedron Prize For Creativity in Organic Chemistry, 2013 Prelog Medal awarded by ETH Switzerland and 2015 ACS Cope Award. He has been recognized for his teaching with the first Associated Stanford Students Union Teaching Award, the Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching, the Bing Teaching Award, and the Dean's Distinguished Teaching Award. He has lectured extensively (>350) as a named, keynote or plenary lecturer. He has contributed to the education of over 10,000 undergraduate students at Harvard and Stanford Universities. Over 300 students and postdoctoral fellows have been trained in his laboratory including over 70 who are now in academic positions in the US and abroad and many others in leading positions in the pharmaceutical, agricultural and fine chemical industries including the current CEO of Eli Lilly and Co.

Matthias Beller

Matthias Beller is currently the director of the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis at the University of Rostock (Germany). He received his first degree in 1987 (University of Gottingen), followed by a PhD (1989, L.-F. Tietze, University of Gottingen). This was followed by a post-doctoral stint as a Liebig Scholar with K. B. Sharpless (1990, MIT). He has received numerous awards including: Novartis Chemistry Lecturer (2003); GottfriedWilhelm Leibniz Prize of the DFG ; (2006), Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2006); Paul Rylander Award of the Organic Reactions Catalysis Society (USA, 2010); European Sustainable Chemistry Award (2011), American Chemical Society GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable Lecturer (2011) and Prix Gay-Lussac Humboldt (2012). His current research interests centre on the development of new sustainable catalysts for practical applications, namely coupling and carbonylation reactions, selective redox processes, development of iron catalysts, and the application of catalysis to more benign energy technologies. At the age of only 52 he has published about 700 original publications and review articles, including the co-author of >90 patent applications, which have been filed in the last decade.

Thomas J. Colacot

Thomas J. Colacot is currently the Global Research & Development Manager in the area of Homogeneous Catalysis at Johnson Matthey Catalysis & Chiral Technologies in West Deptford, New Jersey. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry (IIT Madras, 1989) with postdoctoral research (USA) and MBA (USA). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and winner of the 2012 RSC Applied Catalysis Award and 2015 ACS Industrial Chemistry Award for his work in homogeneous catalysis, with emphasis on cross coupling. Dr. Colacot has co-authored several publications and patents, including the recent editing of a book (October 2014) entitled “New Trends in Cross-Coupling: Theory and Applications”, by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Dr. Colacot collaborates heavily with both academia and industry in terms of applying the right technology for creating value for the business growth in his company as well as for his customers. He has also given numerous plenary and keynote lectures in many international conferences as well as in Industry R & D labs and academia globally. The American Chemical Society recently organized a one day symposium in his honor at the national meeting in Denver, Co. (March 2015). He and his group have developed several new practical catalysts for commercial applications in Fine Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals from concept to multi-kgs for many multinational companies. His group is also involved in studying the structure-activity relationships of catalysts and their role in organic synthesis.

Thomas J. Colacot is also the winner of the 2015 International Precious Metals Institute Henry J. Albert Award, which is sponsored by the BASF cooperation.

Rob Paton

Rob Paton is an Associate Professor in Organic Chemistry at the University of Oxford, UK. Paton’s group uses theory and computation to solve problems in organic and bio-organic chemistry. Following graduate studies with Jonathan Goodman at the University of Cambridge, and a Fulbright-AstraZeneca Postdoctoral Fellowship with K.N. Houk at the UCLA, Rob was appointed to a University Lectureship and Tutorial Fellowship at Oxford in 2010. Recent accolades include the MGMS Silver-Jubilee Prize 2014, and a Thieme Chemistry Journal Award in 2015.

Recent accolades include the MGMS Silver-Jubilee Prize 2014, a Thieme Chemistry Journal Award in 2015 and a Harrison-Meldola Memorial Prize for 2015 from the RSC.

Dawei Ma

Dawei Ma received his PhD in 1989 from Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC), and did his postdoctoral studies at the University of Pittsburgh and the Mayo Clinic. He returned to SIOC in 1994, and was appointed as a research professor in 1995. From 2001 to 2010 he was the director of the State Key Laboratory of Bioorganic & Natural Products Chemistry. He is presently the deputy director of SIOC and an associate editor of Journal of Organic Chemistry. His research interests currently focus on the development of new synthetic methodologies, the total synthesis of complex natural products and their SAR and action mode studies, as well as the discovery of small modulators for target proteins and special biological processes.

Olivier Dirat

Olivier Dirat was born in Paris in 1971. He has BSc degrees in Physics and in Chemistry, a Master’s degree in Chemistry (ESPCI-Paris, 1996) and a PhD (Université Paris-Sud-Orsay, 1999) under the guidance of Prof. Yves Langlois working on the application of diastereoselective [3+2] cycloadditions for the synthesis of naturally occurring β-lactones. He then moved to Stanford University for a Post-doc with Prof. Barry Trost, where he completed the total synthesis of epi-Hygromycin A and the first total synthesis of Callipeltoside A, establishing its relative and absolute stereochemistry. In 2002, he joined Merck Sharp and Dohme at Terlings Park in the UK as a team leader in medicinal chemistry, focusssing on lead optimization programs in neuroscience. In 2006, he joined Pfizer’s chemical research and development department in Sandwich, UK, where he focussed on late stage development projects (from P2b to commercialisation). Currently he is group leader and API project manager, involved in route scouting, route development, technology transfer, QbD, Science of scale and regulatory submissions. He is also a member of Pfizer’s impurities council specializing in genotoxic impurities. He has co-authored 17 peer-reviewed publications and 3 patents. Outside work, Olivier is a keen photographer, opera lover and enjoys spending time in the American south-west.

Sylviane Sabo-Etienne

Sylviane Sabo-Etienne is a CNRS Research Director at the Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination in Toulouse, France. She was awarded the RSC Frankland award in 2010, and the Glenn T Seaborg Memorial Lecturer award by the University of California, Berkeley. In 2014 she received the Coordination Chemistry Division award of the French Chemical Society (SCF). Her broad research interests encompass coordination chemistry, organometallic chemistry and catalysis with a specific focus on transition metal complexes displaying H-H, B-H, Si-H, and C-H bonding modes via agostic and/or sigma interactions. Small molecule activation, and hydrogen transfer processes are areas under active pursuit with structure-activity relationships, and the mechanism of the catalytic reactions being integral components of the different projects.

Nicolai Cramer

Nicolai Cramer studied chemistry at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. He stayed at the same institution and earned his PhD degree in 2005 under the guidance of Professor Sabine Laschat. After a short research stage at Osaka University, Japan, he joined the group of Professor Barry M. Trost at Stanford University as a Feodor-Lynen postdoctoral fellow in 2006. From 2007 on, he worked on his habilitation at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland associated to the chair of Professor Erick M. Carreira and recieved his venia legendi in 2010. In fall 2010, he joint EPF Lausanne, Switzerland as Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2013. His general interests encompass enantioselective metal-catalyzed transformations and their implementation for the synthesis of biologically active molecules. A key focus of his research is the development of asymmetric C-H and C-C bond functionalizations enabled by designed and tailored ligands. page:

Paolo Melchiorre

Paolo Melchiorre was born in 1973 in Camerino, Italy. He has a degree in Chemistry (1999) from the University of Bologna, Italy. He received his PhD in Chemistry in 2003 at Bologna University working in the area of asymmetric catalysis (Achille Umani-Ronchi/Pier Giorgio Cozzi. In 2002, he spent a period in Denmark working with Karl Anker Jørgensen at Århus University, where his studies centered on asymmetric organocatalysis. In 2003, he took a postdoctoral appointment with Giuseppe Bartoli at Bologna University. In October 2007 he was appointed assistant Professor at Bologna University. This was followed in 2009 by appointment to positions of Professor and group leader the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) in Tarragona, Spain. He has more than 85 publications in international scientific journals. His papers have received more than 5000 citations. His current scientific interests lie in the area of discovery and mechanistic elucidation of new asymmetric organocatalytic and photochemical processes addressing unsolved problems in synthetic methodology. The final aim is to develop environmentally friendly and innovative catalytic methods that will find widespread use in organic synthesis.

Hans-Jürgen Federsel

Hans-Jürgen Federsel, PhD in Organic Chemistry, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm (1980). Starting as process R&D chemist in Astra, Södertälje, Sweden (1974) he has occupied positions both as line and project manager. After the formation of AstraZeneca (1999) he became Director of Science, followed by appointment as Senior Principal Scientist. Academic qualifications lead to an Associate Professorship (KTH,1990) and a seat on the Board of the School of Chemical Science and Engineering. 2009 he was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. After closure of Södertälje R&D (2012), he relocated to Macclesfield, UK maintaining his previous role

Nicholas Turner

Nick Turner obtained his DPhil in 1985 with Professor Sir Jack Baldwin and from 1985-1987 was a Royal Society Junior Research Fellow, spending time at Harvard University with Professor George Whitesides. He was appointed lecturer in 1987 at Exeter University and moved to Edinburgh in 1995, initially as a Reader and subsequently Professor in 1998. In October 2004 he joined Manchester University as Professor of Chemical Biology where his research group is located in the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB). He is Director of the Centre of Excellence in Biocatalysis (CoEBio3) and also a co-founder and Scientific Director of Ingenza (www.ingenza.com), a spin-out biocatalysis company based in Edinburgh and more recently discovery Biocatalysts. He is a member of the Editorial Board of ChemCatChem and Advanced Synthesis and Catalysis. His research interests are in the area of biocatalysis with particular emphasis on the discovery and development of novel enzyme catalysed reactions for applications in organic synthesis. His group are also interested in the application of directed evolution technologies for the development of biocatalysts with tailored functions

Peter Seeberger

Peter Seeberger studied chemistry and biochemistry in Erlangen (Germany) and Boulder (USA). After completing his PhD and performing research at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Research in New York he built an independent research program at MIT where he was promoted to Firmenich Associate Professor of Chemistry with tenure after just four years. After six years as Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich he assumed positions as Director at the Max-Planck Institute for Colloids and Surfaces in Potsdam and Professor at the Free University of Berlin. In addition he serves as Affiliate Professor at the Sanford-Burnham Institute for Medical Research (La Jolla, USA) and honorary Professor at the University of Potsdam. His research on the chemistry and biology of carbohydrates, continuous flow chemistry and automation of chemistry, carbohydrate vaccine development and a broad range of topics from engineering to immunology has been documented in over 370 peer-reviewed journal articles, two books, more than 35 patents, over 150 published abstracts and more than 670 invited lectures. This work was recognized with more than 25 international awards from the US (e.g. Arthur C. Cope Young Scholar Award, Horace B. Isbell Award, Claude S. Hudson Award from the American Chemical Society), Germany (e.g. Körber Prize for European Sciences), Holland (Havinga Medal), Israel (Honorary Lifetime Member Israel Chemical Society), Japan (Yoshimasa Hirata Gold Medal), Switzerland (“The 100 Most Important Swiss”) and international organizations (Whistler Award 2012, International Carbohydrate Society). In 2013 he was elected to the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. He served the scientific community in many functions. He greatly supports the idea of open access publishing as the Editor-in-Chief of the Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry, was the Editor of the Journal of Carbohydrate Chemistry and serves on the editorial advisory boards of many other journals. Through his work in the area of neglected diseases, Peter Seeberger has become involved in philanthropic causes. He is a co-founder of the Tesfa-Ilg “Hope for Africa” Foundation that aims at improving health care in Ethiopia that recently helped to build a bed-net factory and established an IT training center. The research his laboratory has given rise to several spin-off companies in the USA and Germany.

Pedro Gois

Pedro M. P. Gois (Portugal-1977) studied chemistry at the New University of Lisbon from where he also received his PhD (2005) in organic chemistry under the supervision of Carlos Afonso. From May 2005 to May 2008 he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Sussex with Geoffrey Cloke, at University College of London with Stephen Caddick and at the Instituto Superior Técnico (Technical University of Lisbon) with Carlos Afonso. From May 2008 he joined the Pharmacy Faculty of the Lisbon University as an assistant research fellow in the medicinal chemistry group (iMed.UL - Research Institute for Medicines and Pharmaceutical Sciences) and in July 2013, he was appointed Principal Investigator at the same institution and head of the Bioorganic group. He has received the following awards/distinctions; Nominated a 2014 Emerging Investigator by Chemical Communications of RSC (2014), Portuguese Young Organic Chemist Award - Portuguese Chemical Society 2012 (2012), Vicente Seabra Medal – Portuguese Chemical Society (best chemist under 40) (2012), Honorable Mention - UTL Young Researcher Award - UTL/Deloitte (2008).

Martin Ernst

Martin Ernst was born in Heidelberg, Germany in 1973 but studied chemistry in Dresden, Strasbourg and Zurich before joining Prof. G. Helmchen's group at Heidelberg University for a PhD on natural product synthesis. After one year with Prof. P.A. Wender at Stanford University working on total synthesis he joined the famous Ammonia Lab of BASF in Ludwigshafen as lab manager for amine process R&D in 2003. Following an interlude in product management and application technology he is now back in R&D, again with a focus on amine production technologies. Since joining BASF he (co)authored more than 25 patent applications.

Christina White

M. Christina White was born in Athens, Greece. She received a B.A. degree with highest honors in biochemistry from Smith College working with Stuart Rosenfeld. After a one-year stint in the biology graduate program working with Christian Anfinsen, she received her Ph. D. degree from Johns Hopkins University in chemistry with Gary Posner as an ACS Medicinal Chemistry Pre-Doctoral fellow. She was a NIH postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University with Eric Jacobsen from 1999-2002 and is currently a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has given >180 invited and/or plenary lectures. Her group aims to study and develop selective, catalytic C—H oxidation, amination, and alkylation reactions for general use in organic synthesis. They have contributed novel palladium/sulfoxide catalysts (Alldrich, Strem and TCI) and iron catalysts (Aldrich and,Strem) that functionalize allylic, vinylic and aliphatic C—H bonds under preparative conditions with predictable site-selectivities, even in complex molecule settings- without the requirement for directing groups. These reactions and the quantitative models developed to understand and predict their site-selectivities have provided insights into the physical organic properties of C—H bonds that govern their differential reactivity and have led to strategic advances synthesis. She has received numerous awards, like for example: Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2014), Royal Society of Chemistry Merck Award (2013), American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow (2012), Cope Scholar Award (2009), Roche Excellence in Chemistry Award (2009), Abbott Young Investigator Award (2008), AstraZeneca Excellence in Chemistry Award (2008), Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2008), Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals New Investigator Award (2008), Amgen Young Investigator Award (2008), Sanofi Aventis “Visions in Chemistry” (2008), Pfizer Award for Creativity in Organic Chemistry (2008-2009), BMS Unrestricted “Freedom to Discover” Grant (2008-2009), Eli Lilly Grantee Award (2007-2009), Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow (2008-2010), Fellow, UIUC Center for Advanced Study (2006), NSF CAREER Award (2006-2010), Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award (2002-2007), National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship (1999-2002), American Chemical Society, Division of Medicinal Chemistry Predoctoral Fellowship (1997-1998), Sarah and Adolph Roseman Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry, JHU (1997), Sigma Xi, Smith College (1992), First Group Scholar, Smith College (1992), Ford Foundation Summer Research Grant, Smith College (1991), Dean’s List, Smith College (1988-1992).

Domenico Russo

Domenico Russo is the Industrial & Process Development Chemist Manager at BIAL - Portela & Cª, S.A., after obtaining his Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry at the University of Catania (Italy) he worked in the R&D department and API manufacturing animal health division ofat Wyeth lederle Italy from 1996 to 2008.

He has over 18 years experience in drug substance process development and relevant industrialization at full manufacturing scale. During this time, he held various positions within medium to large pharma companies in different phases of drug development. In his current position at Bial S.A. Domenico has played a key role in the successful process development of new chemical entities by technology process transfer alongside comprehensive GMP CRO qualification processes. This drug development experience ranges from early development to phase III development as well as lifecycle activities support for approved drugs. He is also supporting reliable supply chain and market authorization process of new drug product through a multidisciplinary project team environment. Domenico has a keen interest in training and development, sharing best practices and standardizing processes across development and industrialization research project management function. Apart from drug substance development, Domenico has a strong interest in the management of innovation, innovation processes and the organizational factors impacting creativity and innovation.

Jose M. Villalgordo

José Villalgordo is the founder (2003), CEO and research manager of VillaPharma Research located in the technological park at Fuente Alamo, Murcia (Spain). A company devoted to the synthesis of collections of novel organic substances with potential therapeutic applications. He holds an MSc in organic chemistry (1987, University of Murcia), a PhD in organic chemistry working with Heinz Heimgartner (1992, University of Zürich) and conducted post-doc studies with Claudio Palomo (1993-4, University of the Basque Country, San Sebastian, Spain). Between 1994 and 2002 he was a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Girona (Spain). He is the author or co-author of more than 35 scientific papers, patents and books in the field of Heterocyclic synthesis, peptide Chemistry, solid-Phase synthesis, combinatorial chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry