Meet the Winners of the 2022 Prizes Awarded by the Organic Chemistry Division of the Société Chimique de France!

The Division de Chimie Organique (DCO) of the Société Chimique de France (SCF) and the European Journal of Organic Chemistry have joined forces for the third year to celebrate the winners of the DCO 2022 Awards. The partnership between SCF-DCO and EurJOC is continuous and full of success! The opportunities to meet and work together are increasingly numerous, at the initiative of both parties, and we can only rejoice that this contributes to making known and promoting the excellence of French organic chemistry. It is therefore a great pleasure for me, as President of the DCO, and on behalf of the entire board, to have this opportunity, thanks to the invitation from EurJOC, to present the winners of the 2022 awards of our organic chemistry division. All awardees were invited to write an original research article or a review for EurJOC. We are very grateful to our prize winners, most of whom responded positively to this invitation. We award eight prizes each year, at all stages of an organic chemist's career, in recognition of creativity, innovation, and excellence. We are pleased to present our eight winners in Figure 1. Among them, two PhD prizes are delivered, one supported by the Dina Surdin Foundation, the other called Henri Kagan Prize. We believe it is important to recognize brilliant young researchers and encourage them to persevere right from the start of their careers. The Henri Kagan Prize has been awarded to Jennifer Morvan; we are very pleased to highlight this talented young researcher, who studied at the École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie in Rennes and also completed a Master of Research in Molecular Chemistry at the University of Rennes. In 2018, she began a thesis in the “Organometallics: Materials and Catalysis” team at the ENSCR, supervised by Drs. M. Mauduit and C. Crévisy. She defended her thesis entitled “Development of highly robust and stereoselective ruthenium catalysts for olefin metathesis” at the end of 2021. Her work has led to racemic mixtures of ruthenated complexes bearing atropoisomeric alkyl amino carbene or N-heterocyclic carbene ligands. They were obtained in their optically pure form by preparative-scale separation by chiral stationary phase HPLC. They efficiently catalyzed asymmetric cross-metathesis and asymmetric ring-opening cross-metathesis reactions on a wide range of substrates, offering up to 99 % enantiomeric excess at E/Z ratios of 99 : 1. The exchange of anionic ligands on these optically pure complexes led to Z-enantioselective complexes. Finally, her work also led to the development of the first continuous-flow Z-selective metatheses. Jennifer co-authored an exciting review describing the challenges and advances in Z-enantioselective olefin metathesis; check it out! (https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejoc.202300671). She is currently pursuing postdoctoral research at the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, in Belgium. Jennifer Morvan, Yohan Gisbert, Julien Vantourout, Rafael Gramage-Doria, Etienne Brachet, Thomas Poisson, Jean-Guy Boiteau, and Véronique Michelet, the DCO 2022 Awards winners. The Dina Surdin PhD Prize was presented to Yohan Gisbert, who carried out his doctoral work in the field of nanoscience. He completed his postgraduate studies at the Université de Toulouse, having the opportunity to go for two stays abroad, including one in the group of Pr. Nitschke (Cambridge) concerning the synthesis of molecular cages, and the other one in the group of Pr. Veige (University of Florida) concerning new supramolecular polymers. He then joined the Nanosciences Group at CEMES in Toulouse, where he completed his thesis under the supervision of Dr. C. Kammerer and Pr. G. Rapenne. He focused on the design and synthesis of new molecular machines derived from an electric molecular motor, enabling their functionality to be increased or their driving force to be measured at the single-molecule scale. He further undertook more fundamental synthetic studies dedicated to developing a direct hexa-arylation reaction of cyclopentadiene. In 2022, Yohan joined Pr. B. Feringa's group at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen as part of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions postdoctoral fellowship, to study new molecular switches and motors designed to produce coupled motion, notably enabling the preparation of new chiroptic switches. The Organic Chemistry Division awards a prize to a young researcher who has been in academia in France for less than four years. This year, 2022, Julien Vantourout was rewarded for his independent career, which started in 2020 as a CNRS researcher in the SCORE laboratory at the ICBMS of Lyon. Julien graduated from CPE Lyon in 2014, where he worked in the laboratory of Pr. O. Baudoin. He joined a collaborative PhD program between GlaxoSmithKline and the University of Strathclyde in the field of copper-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions under the supervision of Pr. A. J. B. Watson and Dr. A. Isidro-Llobet and defended his thesis in 2018. He then obtained a postdoctoral position with Pr. P. Baran at the Scripps Research Institute, where he designed a series of new P(V)-based reagents and developed metal-catalyzed electrochemical reactions. Promoted to staff scientist, he has supervised several industrial collaboration projects. Back in Lyon, his work focused on the development of transition metal-catalyzed electrochemical transformations. He contributed to EurJOC by presenting a practical electrochemical method for the trifluoromethylselenolation of activated alkyl halides. (https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejoc.202200123). Julien Vantourout is now a principal scientist for crop protection chemistry at Syngenta. The Jean-Pierre Sauvage Prize was created for young CNRS researchers who have been practicing their profession for less than eight years, and it was attributed to Rafael Gramage-Doria. Rafael obtained his doctorate at the University of Strasbourg under the supervision of Dr. D. Matt and Pr. D. Armspach. After postdoctoral research with Pr. J. Reek at the University of Amsterdam and then with Pr. T. Ooi at Nagoya University, he was appointed CNRS researcher at the Institut des Sciences Chimiques of Rennes, where he obtained his Habilitation Diploma in 2019. His expertise lies in the areas of transition-metal catalysis for fine chemicals and green chemistry applications, C−H bond functionalization, supramolecular and coordination chemistry, as well as supramolecular and bio-inspired catalysis. Here, he proposes a contribution dealing with supramolecular encapsulation of DABCO in zinc porphyrins, supported by computational studies. (https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejoc.202300621). We had the pleasure of delivering the Jean Normant Prize, which is dedicated to rewarding a young assistant professor at the same stage of their career as the previous one, to Etienne Brachet. Etienne completed his doctoral training at the Faculté de Pharmacie de Châtenay-Malabry under the supervision of Pr. A. Hamze (Master's degree) and then under the supervision of Drs. S. Messaoudi and M. Alami (PhD) on the synthesis of pallado- or nickello-catalyzed C−S and C−N bonds. After defending his thesis at the end of 2013, he went on to do a postdoctoral fellowship with Pr. B. König, in 2014, aimed at discovering and applying photocatalysis to the creation of the C−N bond. He was then appointed Lecturer in Therapeutic Chemistry at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Université de Paris Cité, where he collaborated with Pr. Philippe Belmont in the field of photocatalysis under visible irradiation. He obtained his Habilitation Diploma in 2020, and since then, he has been focusing on EDA (Electron Donor-Acceptor) complexes under visible light for creating new bonds. Obtaining the Jean-Marie Lehn award occurs later in the career (between 8 and 15 years after recruitment). Thomas Poisson was awarded it in 2022 in recognition of his excellent career in organic synthesis methodology. Thomas obtained his PhD at the University of Rouen in 2008 under the supervision of Dr. V. Levacher before moving to Pr. S. Kobayashi's group, working on asymmetric catalysis using alkaline earth metal complexes. He then joined Pr. M. Rueping in Aachen to work on new photocatalyzed reactions. Appointed Lecturer at INSA Rouen Normandie in 2011 within the group of Pr. X. Pannecoucke, he then became Professor in 2018. Thomas is interested in the development of new methodologies in organic synthesis, notably using transition metals, with an emphasis on copper chemistry. He is also an expert in photocatalytic, photochemical, and electrochemical reactions, as well as enantioselective catalysis while developing numerous very fruitful industrial collaborations. His expertise has already been recognized by numerous awards, including the title Distinguished Junior Member of the SCF in 2015 and our division's Jean Normant Prize the following year. Here, Thomas shares with us his expertise in electrosynthesis for the borylation of electron-deficient alkenes and allenoates. (https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejoc.202300063). A prize also recognizing an exceptional contribution in the industrial area, the Yves Chauvin Prize, was attributed in 2022 to Jean-Guy Boiteau. He studied chemistry at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Mulhouse and obtained his doctorate in 2001 under the supervision of Pr. J. Eustache, on the metathesis reaction applied to the total synthesis of (-)-fumagillol. He then conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Groningen, in Pr. B. Feringa's laboratory, on asymmetric catalysis. Jean-Guy began his industrial career in 2003 as a medicinal chemist at Galderma R&D in Sophia-Antipolis, working on a number of therapeutic targets related to skin pathologies. In 2010, he turned to chemical development, taking charge of the Process Research and Development Laboratory, and became involved in identifying new ways of synthesizing active ingredients. In 2018, he joined the Nuvisan Group as head of the chemical development department. His laboratory and teams are researching new synthetic routes, manufacturing clinical batches in a good manufacturing practices environment, isolating impurities, and characterizing the solid phase. He is very active in sharing his passion for the profession of chemist, speaking at PolyTech Nice in particular, as well as with high school students through France Chimie and the Olympiades de la Chimie. Our most prestigious prize, the DCO prize, is awarded to a chemist who has carried out research work recognized nationally and internationally for its excellence and originality. We were delighted to award it to Véronique Michelet from the Institut de Chimie de Nice. She did her post-graduate studies at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris and obtained her PhD from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in 1996 in Pr. J.-P. Genêt's group on a palladium methodology and total synthesis project. After two post-doctoral fellowships in the groups of Pr. J. D. Winkler at the University of Pennsylvania, on the synthesis of light-sensitive macrocycles, and Pr. A. G. M. Barrett at Imperial College, on the synthesis of polypeptides on solid support, she was appointed to ChimieParisTech as a CNRS research fellow in 1998. She was promoted to Directeur de Recherche in 2007 and obtained a professorship from the Université Côte d'Azur at the Institut de Chimie de Nice in 2017. Her research themes combine fundamental and applied aspects of catalysis to develope new synthetic methodologies for the formation of carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bonds. She is also involved in industrial partnerships for the synthesis of new odorant or bioactive molecules in accordance with the concepts of sustainable chemistry. Gold catalysis is one of her favorite research topics; she is one of the pioneers in developing reactions promoted by this metal for asymmetric catalysis and atom- and step-saving reactions, such as cycloisomerization and domino processes. She has received several awards, including the CNRS Bronze Medal in 2006 and the SCF Acros Prize in 2010. She is deeply involved in the administration of research for the benefit of the community and in promoting and popularizing research among young people. Here, she demonstrates the effectiveness of gold catalysis in regioselective oxy(di)fluorination reactions of phthalimido-protected propargylamines. (https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejoc.202101524). We hope you enjoy reading this special collection, which introduces you to our award winners and highlights the discoveries in organic chemistry in France made by DCO-SCF members. Our collaboration with EurJOC continues, and we will soon present the highly talented researchers who have won the DCO awards in 2023 to you. Also, don't miss the brand new annual joint prizes awarded by EurJOC and the DCO to young publishers, nor to meet us at our many fruitful joint events! Dr. Emmanuelle Schulz (President of the DCO-SCF 2021–2024), Directrice de Recherche CNRS, Institut de Chimie Moléculaire et des Matériaux d'Orsay, Université Paris-Saclay.