WerzLab

It was a pleasure to host @MarkGandelman @TechnionLive in Freiburg @UniFreiburg @FreiburgChem @WerzLab @pappas_babis and to learn about his unique chemistry based on nitrenium ions.

What a loss for the chemical community! I always appreciated his advice and our regular discussions during my time in Braunschweig.

@strained_rings @JOC_OL An important paper @werzlab @UniFreiburg @FreiburgChem for bicyclobutane chemistry demonstrating a new activation mode besides Lewis acid and photocatalysis @strained_rings Congrats to Jeremy and Daniil!

⚡🔋Electrochemical strain-release activation of bicyclo[1.1.0]butanes enables catalyst-free cycloadditions and arylations, forging oxabicyclohexanes and cyclobutanes—electrons as reagents to unlock high-strain C–C bonds @JOC_OL @WerzLab pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac…

Thanks Sigi Waldvogel for an enlightful talk about electricity in organic synthesis @UniFreiburg @FreiburgChem @werzlab @pappas_babis @TobiasSchnitzer

Unique chemistry of carbodications presented Florian Mulks @FFMulks from @RWTH at @UniFreiburg @FreiburgChem @werzlab @BBreitLab @pappas_babis @TobiasSchnitzer

@GavinCTsui Yes, I should. Would love to come back to Hong Kong. Already three years….

@WerzLab @UniFreiburg @FreiburgChem Daniel, next time stop by Hong Kong, high speed rail from Wuhan in a few hours only.

A fantastic lecture tour that comes to its end….thanks a lot to all of you who hosted me so wonderfully - in Wuhan, in Changsha, in Wuhu and in Chengdu. Special thanks to Liang-Qiu Lu for the initiative to bring me to China @WerzLab @UniFreiburg @FreiburgChem

@livesinchem This is so sad news! A giant of organic chemistry left us. I have so many good memories during my time in Göttingen.

🌻A great loss: Armin de Meijere passed away at age 86 on December 17 in Göttingen. Born in Duisburg, not too far away from the Netherlands, hence his Dutch name. His distinguished career spanned both the golden age of physical organic chemistry and the rise of transition-metal catalysis. De Meijere studied chemistry at the Universities of Freiburg @UniFreiburg and Göttingen, where he received his PhD in 1966 under Wolfgang Lüttke for spectroscopic and electron-diffraction studies. After a postdoc with Ken Wiberg at @Yale Univ., he embarked on his academic career: Habilitation (1971) and first professorship in Göttingen (1974) were followed by full professorships at the Univ. of Hamburg (1977–1989) before returning to Göttingen, where he remained until his retirement in 2006. De Meijere was famous for studies on highly strained polycyclic small-ring hydrocarbons, for developing new synthetic methods using cyclopropane and cyclopropene building blocks on the one hand and for transition metal—Pd in particular—catalyzed reactions on the other hand. He used such methods in the #TotalSynthesis of natural products and bioactive compounds. As early as 1976, his group reported a gold-catalyzed rearrangement, and soon after a photochemical trifluoromethylation—both notably ahead of their time. A plethora of fascinating three-membered ring-based molecules were synthesized, like polyrotanes and propellanes; acepentalene was first synthesized in his group, among many other achievements. De Meijere received numerous awards, including the Adolf von Bayer Medal of the GDCh @GDCh_aktuell. Around 250 PhD students and postdocs have lost an exceptional mentor—and chemistry has lost a giant.

From prebiotic organocatalysis to protocells: Impressive results presented by Oliver Trapp from LMU @UniFreiburg @FreiburgChem @WerzLab @pappas_babis @BBreitLab @TobiasSchnitzer

We have never thought that our BOIMPYs would get so prominent in photocatalysis: carboxylative Birch and activation of N2O. Great collaboration of the Mandal group ⁦@iiserkol⁩ with ⁦@WerzLab⁩ ⁦@UniFreiburg⁩ ⁦@FreiburgChem⁩ pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ja…

Great to have Stefan Hecht @SHechtlab from HU Berlin with us for a GDCh talk @GDCh_aktuell @UniFreiburg @FreiburgChem @WerzLab @TobiasSchnitzer @BBreitLab @pappas_babis giving us insights into photoswitches and xolography

What a wonderful visit to Israel, meeting so many good friends after quite a while. Thank you so much for your great hospitality and company! @mifridm @ShabatGroup @GroupMarek @NairoukhGroup @WerzLab @FreiburgChem @UniFreiburg

Carbohydrate Materials - an eye-opening talk by Martina Delbianco from @MpiciPotsdam in our @livMatS_UniFR Cluster of Excellence @UniFreiburg @FreiburgChem @pappas_babis @WerzLab. Many new opportunities…

Congratulations to Tobias for this distinction and the huge amount of funding. Important for his group, but also for chemistry @FreiburgChem @UniFreiburg. We are very happy to have you here.

It was great to visit all of you @TU_Dortmund @GDCh_aktuell @MMHansmann_chem - what a young dynamic group of colleagues at that place! @WerzLab @UniFreiburg @FreiburgChem

What a start @UniFreiburg @FreiburgChem of the Richard Willstätter Lectureship @GDCh_aktuell for Ilan Marek @GroupMarek - non-classical carbocations for stereoselective synthesis! @WerzLab @BBreitLab @pappas_babis

PhD #29, Sebastian Röttger, of @WerzLab @FreiburgChem @UniFreiburg - my warmest congratulations! Good luck with your new job in Switzerland!

Liebig Lectureship 2025 @GDCh_aktuell for Renana Gershoni-Poranne @Aromaticist from Technion: An energetic start on aromatic compounds at @UniFreiburg @FreiburgChem @WerzLab @pappas_babis @BBreitLab - six other places will follow

Great finale of my lecture tour in Texas: Rice University with Laszlo @kurtilaszlo, David @SarlahLab and Hans @hanzyduzit. @WerzLab @FreiburgChem @UniFreiburg