Anthony Davis, Chair
University of Bristol, UK
Anthony Davis gained a B.A. in Chemistry from Oxford University in 1977, then stayed for a D.Phil. under Dr. G. H. Whitham and postdoctoral work with Prof. J. E. Baldwin. In 1981 he moved to the ETH Zürich as a Royal Society European Exchange Fellow working with Prof. A. Eschenmoser, then in 1982 was appointed Lecturer in Organic Chemistry at Trinity College, Dublin. In September 2000 he moved to the University of Bristol, where he is Professor of Supramolecular Chemistry in the School of Chemistry.
His research focuses on the development of supramolecular systems with potential for biological applications, especially carbohydrate receptors and transmembrane anion transporters. He has co-founded two companies to exploit discoveries in carbohydrate recognition and sensing; Ziylo, which was sold in 2018 to Novo Nordisk, and Carbometrics, which continues to work in the area.
Jeroen Dickschat, Associate editor
University of Bonn, Germany
Jeroen S. Dickschat studied Chemistry at TU Braunschweig and obtained his PhD under the supervision of Stefan Schulz in 2004, followed by postdoctoral stays with Rolf Müller at Saarland University and with Peter Leadlay at the University of Cambridge (UK). In 2008 he started his independent career at TU Braunschweig, culminating in his habilitation in 2013. In 2014 he accepted an appointment as a Professor of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Bonn. He also holds a honorary Professorship at the NIOO Wageningen (The Netherlands). His group is interested in the biosynthesis of microbial natural products, with a special focus on the elucidation of the complex reaction mechanisms in their formation.
Katrina Jolliffe, Associate editor
University of Sydney, Australia
Katrina (Kate) Jolliffe received her BSc (Hons) in 1993 and PhD in 1997 from the University of New South Wales. She then held positions at Twente University, The Netherlands; the University of Nottingham, UK and the Australian National University before taking up an Australian Research Council QEII fellowship at The University of Sydney in 2002.
In 2007 she became a Senior lecturer at the same institution and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2008 and to full Professor in 2009. She currently holds the position of Payne-Scott Professor at The University of Sydney. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and has been awarded the Beckwith (2004), Biota (2006), Birch (2017) and H. G. Smith (2018) medals of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute.
Her research interests are in the areas of supramolecular, peptide and organic chemistry, with a focus on the design and synthesis of functional molecules, such as molecular sensors capable of detecting anions in biological environments or cyclic peptides for application in biology and medicine.
Motomu Kanai, Associate editor
University of Tokyo
Motomu Kanai was born in 1967 in Tokyo, Japan, and received his bachelor degree from The University of Tokyo (UTokyo) in 1989 under the direction of late Professor Kenji Koga. In the middle of his PhD course in UTokyo (in 1992), he obtained an assistant professor position in Professor Kiyoshi Tomioka’s group of Osaka University.
He obtained his PhD from Osaka University in 1995. Then, he moved to University of Wisconsin, USA, for postdoctoral studies with Professor Laura L. Kiessling. In 1997 he returned to Japan and joined Professor Masakatsu Shibasaki’s group in UTokyo as an assistant professor. After being lecturer (2000-2003) and associate professor (2003-2010), he is currently a professor in UTokyo (since 2010) and a principal investigator of ERATO Kanai Life Science Project (2011-2017).
He has received The Pharmaceutical Society of Japan Award for Young Scientists (2001), Thieme Journals Award (2003), Merck-Banyu Lectureship Award (MBLA: 2005), Asian Core Program Lectureship Award (2008 and 2010), and Thomson-Reuters The 4th Research Front Award (2016). His research interests entail design and synthesis of functional (especially, biologically active) molecules.
Xiaohua Liu, Associate editor
Sichuan University, China
Xiaohua Liu obtained her BSc degree from Hubei Normal University (2000), and obtained her MS (2003) and PhD (2006) from Sichuan University. She joined the faculty of Prof. Feng’s group in 2006, and was appointed as an associate professor. In 2010, she was promoted as a full professor. Her current research interests include asymmetric catalysis and chiral drug synthesis.
Santanu Mukherjee, Associate editor
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
Santanu Mukherjee obtained his BSc (Chemistry Honors) from R. K. Mission Residential College, Narendrapur (2000) and MSc (Chemistry) from IIT, Kanpur (2002). After completing his doctoral studies with Professor Albrecht Berkessel at Universität zu Köln in 2006, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Benjamin List at Max-Planck Institut für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim an der Ruhr (2006-2008) and subsequently with Professor E. J. Corey at Harvard University (2008-2010).
In 2010, he returned to India to join the Department of Organic Chemistry at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015.
He is a recipient of Thieme Chemistry Journals Award (2011), Indian National Science Academy (INSA) Medal for Young Scientists (2014) and a Fellow of the 欧美AV (2018).
His research interests primarily revolve around asymmetric catalysis with particular emphasis on the discovery of new enantioselective transformations. His research group mostly relies on hydrogen bonding, Lewis base and bifunctional catalysis. More recently, he is looking to expand his research activities in the realm of iridium-catalyzed asymmetric allylic substitution reactions.
Scott Silverman, Associate editor
University of Illinois, USA
Scott K. Silverman was born in 1972 and raised in Los Angeles, California. He received his BS in chemistry from UCLA in 1991, working with Christopher Foote on photooxygenation mechanisms. He obtained his PhD in chemistry from Caltech in 1997, working with Dennis Dougherty to study high-spin organic polyradicals and molecular neurobiology. After postdoctoral research on RNA biochemistry with Thomas Cech at the University of Colorado at Boulder, he joined the University of Illinois in 2000, where he is currently Professor of Chemistry.
Professor Silverman's research is in the chemistry and biochemistry of nucleic acids, especially investigations of DNA as an enzyme (DNAzyme, deoxyribozyme).
Cristina Trujillo, Associate editor
The University of Manchester
Dr. Cristina Trujillo obtained her Ph.D. in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry in 2008 at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain). During the period 2008-2016, she held several Postdoctoral positions in Spain (CSIC), Prague (Academy of Sciences), and Ireland (Trinity College Dublin). From 2016 until 2018 she worked at TCD as a Research Fellow. After that, she worked as an Assistant Lecturer at TU-Dublin in the School of Chemical & Pharmaceutical Sciences.
She has been awarded the very competitive SFI-Starting Investigator Research Grant (SIRG, 2018) and L’Oreal-Unesco Women in Science UK and Ireland Fellowship -Highly Commended (2019). She worked as an independent researcher leading her research group at TCD from 2019 to 2022. Currently, she is a Lecturer in Computational & Theoretical Chemistry at The University of Manchester.
Dr. Trujillo has expertise in highly fundamental topics within Computational Organic Chemistry such as asymmetric catalysis, computationally-led catalysis design, mechanisms of reaction, and non-covalent interactions. Her research interests are focused on the asymmetric catalysis field, with particular emphasis on the application of computational techniques in the design of organocatalysts along with prediction and control of catalytic processes, with a direct impact on the development of products with different applications.
Huan Wang, Associate editor
Nanjing University, China
Professor Wang graduated from Peking University (2005). He obtained his PhD from University of Maryland at College Park (2010), and conducted post-doctoral research work at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2010-2014). Wang started at Nanjing University in 2014 and works as a Professor in the Chemistry department.
is interested in chemical synthesis and biosynthesis of cyclic peptides, as well as their biological applications.
S.S.V Ramasastry
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, India
Dr Ramasastry obtained Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences in 2005 from the Department of Organic Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (India), under the supervision of Prof. A. Srikrishna. He then pursued postdoctoral studies with Prof. Carlos F. Barbas, III at The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego (USA). After briefly working in industry, he became Assistant Professor in 2011 and then Associate Professor in 2017 at the Department of Chemical Sciences, IISER Mohali.
His research interests include the development of sustainable and atom economic reactions via organophosphine catalysis, palladium-catalyzed allylic alkylation reactions, one-pot cascade transformations employing sulfur ylides, and applying these strategies in the synthesis of bioactive natural products and pharmaceutically important compounds.
Judy I-Chia Wu
University of Houston, USA
Judy is a physical organic chemist and currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Houston. She received her Ph.D. in 2011 from the University of Georgia from Professor Paul Schleyer. Her current research interests span topics in ground and excited-state aromaticity and antiaromaticity, photochemistry, supramolecular chemistry, and enzyme catalysis.
