The Melchiorre’s Group

Catalysis / Light in Chemistry

Group Leader

Paolo Melchiorre

Postdoctoral Researchers

Jan Vilim / Will C.Hartley / Vasileios Tseliou / Diyuan Li

PhD Students

Eleni Georgiou / Davide Spinnato / Matteo Balletti / Emilien Le Saux / Laura Kqiku / Thomas H Wong / Igor Dmitriev / Florian Schiel

Visiting Postdoctoral Researchers

Yann Baumgartner / Martin Berger

Visiting PhD Student

Wei Zhou / Shuo Wu / Antonio Di Sabato / Malte Haring

Visiting Students

Asad Shehzad / Tommy Wachsmuth / Gianluca Simionato

Lab. Technician

Jose Miguel Selles Japas

Summary

The research of Prof. Melchiorre aims to connect two areas of molecular activation, photochemistry and organocatalysis, to provide new frameworks for chemical reactivity for the development of light-emitted asymmetric transformations. His group has shown that the synthetic potential of organocatalytic intermediates is not limited to the fundamental state, but can be expanded by exploring their photochemical activity, providing new synthetic routes for the preparation of chiral molecules that cannot be achieved with the traditional methodologies.

Publications

Photochemical Organocatalytic Functionalization of Pyridines via Pyridinyl Radicals
Le Saux, E.; Georgiou, E.; Dmitriev, I. A.; Hartley, W. C.; Melchiorre, P.
Am. Chem. Soc. 2022, 145 (1), 47-52

Enantioselective Biocascade Catalysis with a Single Multifunctional Enzyme
Tseliou, V.; Faraone, A.; Kqiku, L.; Vilím, J.; Simionato, G.; Melchiorre, P.
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2022

Switchable Photocatalysis for the Chemodivergent Benzylation of 4-Cyanopyridines
Georgiou, E.; Spinnato, D.; Chen, K.; Melchiorre, P.; Muñiz, K.
Chem. Sci. 2022, 13, 8060-8064

MORE PUBLICATIONS

Tetrachlorophthalimides as Organocatalytic Acceptors for Electron Donor–Acceptor Complex Photoactivation
Zhou, W.; Wu, S.; Melchiorre, P.
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2022

Lewis Base-Catalysed Enantioselective Radical Conjugate Addition for the Synthesis of Enantioenriched Pyrrolidinones
Hartley, W. C.; Schiel, F.; Ermini, E.; Melchiorre, P.
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2022, 61 (26), e202204735

Photochemical organocatalytic enantioselective radical γ-functionalization of α-branched enals
Balletti, M.; Marcantonio, E.; Melchiorre, P.
Chem. Commun. 2022

Photoredox Organocatalysis for the Enantioselective Synthesis of 1,7-Dicarbonyl Compounds
Hin-Fung Wong, T.; Ma, D.; Di Sanza, R.; Melchiorre, P.
Org. Lett. 2022, 24 (8), 1695–1699

Introduction: Photochemical Catalytic Processes
Melchiorre, P.
Chem. Rev. 2022, 122 (2), 1483–1484

Photochemical Organocatalytic Benzylation of Allylic C–H Bonds
Le Saux, E.; Zanini, M.; Melchiorre, P.
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2022, 144 (3), 1113–1118

Projects

PHOTO-N-TOOLS
New Synthetic Methods Enabled by the Photochemistry of Organic Molecules and Their Use in Drug Discovery and Bioconjugation
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación / PID2019-106278GB-100

PHOTO-CYCLE
Photocatalysis in Drug Discovery – Asymmetric Preparation of Bioactive Chiral Lactones and Cyclohexanols
H2020-MSCA-IF-2019 / 894795

PHOTO-ITU
Merging enantioselective isothiourea catalysis with visible-light photoactivation for the synthesis of biologically-relevant chiral molecules
H2020-MSCA-IF-2020 / 101031533

BIO-LIGHT
Photoexcitation for New-to-Nature Enzymatic Reactions
H2020-MSCA-IF-2020 / 101032077

ELECTRO-ASYMMETRIC
Electrochemical stereoselective radical cascades for accessing natural-like compounds
HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF / Ref. 101062393

Melchiorre Research Group
AGAUR / Ref. 2021 SGR 00855

 

Theses Supervised

Davide Spinnato
September 7, 2022
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Nickel and Iron Complexes for electrochemical proton and Carbon dioxide reduction

Matteo Balletti
October 10, 2022
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
POMSimulator: a Method for Understanding the Multi-Equilibria and Self-Assembly Processes of Polyoxometalates