Professor Manfred Reetz

Emeritus Director and Head of the External Research Group Biocatalysis at Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Germany

Professor Reetz has made outstanding contributions to biocatalysis and protein engineering by integrating organic chemistry with molecular biology, along with his achievements in transition metal catalysis and other organic synthesis methodologies. He pioneered the directed evolution of enzymes by developing innovative methods for the semi-rational design of biocatalysts for chemo-, regio-, and stereoselective transformations. Key techniques he introduced include the combinatorial active-site saturation test (CAST), which improves enzyme selectivity and efficiency through targeted mutations at the active site. His advancements in high-throughput screening have accelerated enzyme optimization, making directed evolution a practical tool for asymmetric synthesis. Thus, Professor Reetz has greatly enhanced the role of biocatalysts in sustainable industry.

Professor Thorsten Bach

Professor of Organic Chemistry, School of Natural Sciences and Catalysis Research Center, Technische Universität München, Germany

Professor Bach is the pioneer of enantioselective photochemistry and one of the leading experts in the field. He and his group showed successfully that chirality can be introduced by photochemical transformations, both in a stoichiometric and a catalytic sense. By using hydrogen bonding interactions, a temporary chiral confinement was created in which photochemical reactions proceeded with high enantioselectivity. Bach established the use of chiral Lewis acids for catalytic photochemical reactions, and he successfully devised chiral sensitizers as catalysts for visible light-induced asymmetric photochemistry. In recent years, he demonstrated that photochemistry can be employed to convert racemic mixtures into single enantiomers (photochemical deracemization) employing either a selective triplet energy transfer or a reversible hydrogen atom transfer as vehicle to facilitate the counter-thermodynamic process. His creative ideas and his ground-breaking research accomplishments have taken photochemistry to the next level of complexity.

Professor Kenso Soai

Professor Emeritus, Tokyo University of Science, Japan

Professor Soai made a groundbreaking discovery in the realm of chirality by identifying the first instance of asymmetric autocatalysis involving 5-pyrimidyl alkanol in the enantioselective addition of diisopropylzinc to pyrimidine-5-carbaldehyde, called as the Soai reaction. Asymmetric autocatalysis is a reaction in which a chiral product serves as a catalyst for its own production. The Soai reaction exhibits the remarkable capability to significantly enhance the enantiomeric excess of the initial asymmetric autocatalyst, transforming it into a near-enantiopure compound during the consecutive asymmetric autocatalysis. Furthermore, his research delved into the origins of chirality, using various chiral triggers within the Soai reaction to relate to the chirality of highly enantioenriched organic compounds. The Soai reaction was found to be triggered by diverse factors, including chiral minerals, circularly polarized light, chiral crystals composed of achiral compounds like γ-glycine and isotope chirality. Most astonishingly, the Soai reaction demonstrated the ability to achieve spontaneous absolute asymmetric synthesis without any external chiral factors. Thus, Professor Soai has made invaluable contributions to the study of chirality.

Professor Gregory C. Fu

Norman Chandler Professor of Chemistry, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, USA.

Professor Fu has made important contributions to the development of new synthetic methods based on his original design of catalysts and reactions. Fu designed planar-chiral nucleophilic catalysts by fusing DMAP to ferrocene for a variety of asymmetric reactions as represented by acylative kinetic resolution. This achievement, where nitrogen atoms in designed catalysts function as a “working element” in asymmetric catalysis, served as an early contribution to the field of “asymmetric organocatalysis”. Fu’s research interests also include transition-metal catalysis. He established a way to utilize unreactive chloroarenes in Pd-catalyzed sp²–sp² cross-couplings using tri-t-butylphosphine as a ligand. Fu then turned his attention to asymmetric sp³–sp³ carbon–carbon bond-forming cross-couplings using chiral nickel catalysts. His work on enantioconvergent reactions of racemic electrophiles is particularly notable. Fu also succeeded in asymmetric sp³ carbon–heteroatom bond-forming cross-couplings using chiral copper catalysts under irradiation of light. Unlike conventional transition metal/photosensitizer binary catalyst systems, his system needs only a single catalyst. Fu’s achievements are admired not only for their superb profiles and the uniqueness of the individual reactions, but also for their role in pioneering new research fields and applications in organic synthesis.

Professor Bill Morandi

ETH Zurich,Laboratorium für Organische Chemie, Switzerland

Contributions: The Morandi group has developed a wide range of conceptually novel reactions (e.g. shuttle catalysis, single-bond metathesis, nitrogen atom insertion) which provide new approaches to construct, edit, or deconstruct organic molecules, thus significantly advancing the area of organic chemistry. The group has also leveraged these new reactions in interdisciplinary applications (e.g. recyclable polymers, waste upcycling, peptide editing) and studied their mechanisms in great depth.

Professor Koji Hirano

Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Osaka, Japan

Contributions: Dr. Hirano's research centers on pioneering new electrophilic transformations in organic synthesis, focusing on two key concepts: extended umpolung and multiply charged cations. These innovative approaches offer powerful new methodologies, especially valuable for constructing complex molecules. The extended umpolung strategy allows for highly chemo-, regio-, and stereoselective electrophilic amination and etherification reactions. This is achieved using hydroxylamines and specifically designed acetal-based peroxides under copper catalysis. His work with multiply charged cations enables the rapid construction of highly p-conjugated (hetero)aromatic systems, which are challenging to synthesize via other routes.

Weldon G. Brown Professor of Chemistry Guangbin Dong

Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago, USA

Contributions: Research in the Dong group focuses on developing new and synthetically useful transformations. First, his team explores catalytic C-C bond activation as a useful tool for constructing or modifying complex molecular skeletons. Additionally,Dong is a leading contributor to the palladium/norbornene catalysis, which enablessite-selective arene functionalizations and carbonyl transposition. Moreover, the Donggroup has pioneered new activation modes for functionalizing C-H bonds of carbonyl compounds. Finally, his work in boron chemistry lays the foundation for programmable organic synthesis.

Professor Kohsuke Ohmatsu

Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, Japan

Contributions: Research led by Ohmatsu has focused on designing ionic molecular catalysts to address challenges in synthetic organic chemistry. By leveraging the unique properties of ionic organic molecules to construct chiral architectures, a novel strategy for catalyst design has emerged, enabling previously difficult asymmetric transformations. The concept of photocatalytic reactivity of ions has created a groundbreaking platform for both innovative reaction development