Solvias honors Professor Toste for his contribution on gold catalyzed rearrangement reactions with the following laudation of the jury: “In recognition of the development of highly enantioselective Au/MeO-BIPHEP catalyzed rearrangements leading to chiral cyclobutanones and benzopyrans with quaternary stereogenic centers. Examples of high enantioselectivity in Au-catalyzed reactions are still rare and this represents significant progress in this respect. Both reactions reported offer opportunities for application in complex molecule synthesis.” F. Dean Toste is the Chevron Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley. Research in the Toste group is primarily aimed toward the development of catalysts and catalytic methods in order to address problems in the synthesis of complex molecules possessing interesting structural, biological and physical properties.

Dr. Nicolai Cramer is honored for his work on rhodium catalyzed C-C and C-H activation with the following laudation of the jury: “In recognition of the development of unprecedented Rh/MeO-biphep and Rh/Josiphos catalyzed rearrangements of cyclobutanols leading to chiral indanols and cyclohexenones with quaternary stereogenic centers. This is one of the first synthetically useful C-C activation reactions and the multifunctional products offer many possibilities for further transformations.” Nicolai is currently habilitant at the ETH Zurich associated to the chair of Professor Erick M. Carreira. His research program is focused on the design of asymmetric metal-catalyzed reactions and on the synthesis of natural products that exhibit intriguing biological activities.

The awards ceremony and the presentation of the prize-winning contributions took place during the 8th Solvias Science Day. The event was attended by approximately 220 participants from academic and industrial laboratories in Europe.

About the Solvias Ligand Contest
The contest challenges researchers all over the world to submit new and improved applications of Solvias ligands and catalysts. To pick the winner, the jury assesses the novelty, scientific rigor and originality of the work submitted, as well as its practical applicability in organic synthesis.