What a news! Congratulations to Thorsten for his 2nd ERC Advanced Grant - one of the most prestigious research funds in Europe - in less than 10 years! He receives the funds for the project CALIDE - Catalytic Light-induced Deracemization Reactions.
Active pharmaceutical ingredients are often composed of chiral organic compounds. That means that they consist of molecules, known as enantiomers, that are mirror images, but cannot be superimposed one upon the other. In pharmaceutical applications, this difference may result in one enantiomer tending to heal a patient, while the other causes side effects. Until now, considerable effort was needed to separate the undesired molecules from the mixture containing both enantiomers – the racemate – because it was not possible to transform the mixture into the desired final product. This is the starting point of the CALIDE project. Based on successful preliminary work, photochemical reactions will be used to convert the racemate of an organic compound into the desired enantiomer.
Prof. Thorsten Bach holds the Chair of Organic Chemistry I at the Dept. of Chemistry of the TUM School of Natural Sciences and he is also PI and member of the Directorial Board of the TUM Catalysis Research Center. He was awarded with his first ERC Advanced Grant in 2015 and received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in 2020.