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Engineered cytochrome P450 for direct arylalkene-to-ketone oxidation via highly reactive carbocation intermediates

Ketones are crucial intermediates in synthesis and frequent moieties in many products. The direct regioselective synthesis of ketones from internal alkenes could simplify synthetic routes and solve a long-standing challenge in catalysis. In this work, the groups of Prof. Stephan Hammer (University of Bielefeld, Germany) and Dr. Marc Garcia-Borràs (IQCC), report the laboratory evolution of

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PhD defense Laia Vicens Serra

Next week Tuesday will be the defense of the doctoral thesis of Laia Vicens Serra, titled “Implementing amino acids in manganese-catalyzed biologically inspired oxidations: g-lactonization and ligand design”, supervised by Prof. Miquel Costas from IQCC. Place: Sala de Graus de la Facultat de Dret Date: Tuesday July 18, 2023 Time: 11.00h We wish her good luck and all

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On the existence of collective interactions in organometallic compounds

Recently, Sowlati-Hashjin et al. (Nature Communications 13, 2069 (2022)) concluded that the nature of the Li–C chemical bond in LiCF3 differs significantly from that in LiCPh3 (Ph = phenyl). Whereas the Li–C bond of LiCF3 is classified as a conventional two-center two-electron bond (exchange-correlation interaction collectivity index, ICIXC = 0.910, ICIXC > 0.9 and close

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Artur Brotons-Rufes wins poster prize at at the XXXIX Bienal of RSEQ

Last week (June 25-29, 2023) took place the XXXIX Reunión Bienal 2023 Conference from Real Sociedad Española de Química (RSEQ) in Zaragoza, which included a poster session. Artur Brotons-Rufes, PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Albert Poater, presented a poster titled “A DFT STUDY ON A MACROCYCLIC RUTHENIUM CATALYST FORSELECTIVE CROSS-COUPLING OLEFIN METATHESIS”, and won one of the

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PhD defense Miquel Estévez-Gay

Next week Friday will be the defense of the doctoral thesis of Miquel Estévez-Gay, titled “Computational Exploration and Design of Halohydrin Dehalogenase variants with novel synthetically useful functionalities”, supervised by Prof. Sílvia Osuna from IQCC. Place: Aula Magna – Facultat de Ciències Date: Friday July 7, 2023 Time: 11.00h We wish him good luck and all the best!

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Carla Calvó-Tusell wins RSEQ-GEQC Prize for best computational chemistry paper in 2022

Carla Calvó-Tusell has been awarded the 1st prize for best computational chemistry paper in 2022 given by the Computational Chemistry Group (GEQC) of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (Real Sociedad Española de Química, RSEQ). She has received the award for her paper “Time Evolution of the Millisecond Allosteric Activation of Imidazole Glycerol Phosphate Synthase”.

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AlphaFold2 and Deep Learning for Elucidating Enzyme Conformational Flexibility and Its Application for Design

The recent success of AlphaFold2 (AF2) and other deep learning (DL) tools in accurately predicting the folded three-dimensional (3D) structure of proteins and enzymes has revolutionized the structural biology and protein design fields. The 3D structure indeed reveals key information on the arrangement of the catalytic machinery of enzymes and which structural elements gate the

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Miquel costas receives medalla Rafael Uson award GEQO-RSEQ 2023

Last week the Grupo Especializado de Química Organometálica (GEQO – RSEQ) announced that Miquel Costas, full professor at the Institut de Química Computacional i Catàlisi (IQCC) of the UdG, received the Medalla Rafael Usón award of GEQO – RSEQ 2023, for his outstanding scientific trajectory and contributions to the field of organometallic chemistry, in particular

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Silvia Osuna receives Emerging Scientific Talent 2023 award of Societat Catalana de Química

This week the  Societat Catalana de Química (SCQ) announced that Sílvia Osuna, ICREA professor at the Institut de Química Computacional i Catàlisi (IQCC) of the UdG, received the Emerging Scientific Talent 2023 award of Societat Catalana de Química, for her outstanding scientific career on the design of new enzymes of industrial interest using computational chemistry tools. The Emerging Scientific Talent Award for Young Investigators

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Reversing enantioselectivity enzymatic carbene N-H insertion mechanism guided protein engineering

In this work, a team led by Dr. Marc Garcia-Borràs report a computationally driven approach to access enantiodivergent enzymatic carbene N–H insertions catalyzed by P411 enzymes. Computational modeling, carried out by PhD student Carla Calvó-Tusell, was employed to rationally guide engineering efforts to control the accessible conformations of a key lactone-carbene (LAC) intermediate in the

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