News

Filippo Scarchilli wins poster prize at the XIV Spanish-Italian Symposium on Organic Synthesis

Last month (February 25-27, 2024) took place the XIV Spanish-Italian Symposium on Organic Synthesis in Torino (Italy), which included a poster session. Filippo Scarchilli, PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Miquel Costas, presented a poster titled “Highly selective C(sp3)–H bond oxygenation at remote methylenic sites enabled by polarity enhancement”, and won one of the poster prizes.

Continue Reading

Sílvia Osuna granted a new ERC Proof of Concept grant

Prof. Sílvia Osuna, ICREA Professor at the Institute of Computational Chemistry and Catalysis (IQCC) of the University of Girona (UdG), has been awarded a new European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept grant (ERC-2023-POC-101158166). This new ERC-POC is directly related to her previous ERC Starting Grant project NetMoDEzyme and adds to the running ERC-POC GREENZYME

Continue Reading

IQCC opened its doors to 98 high-school students from INS Montsacopa, INS Sant Feliu de Guíxols, INS Vallvera and Montessori Palau Girona

A few times a year, the IQCC opens its doors and gives the opportunity to high-school students to know our work through exciting lectures and computational and experimental workshops. This provides the secondary school pupils the possibility to get a feel for the research and have real-time chemistry in their hands. Last 22nd February, it was

Continue Reading

Biocatalytic strategy for the construction of sp3-rich polycyclic compounds from directed evolution and computational modelling

Catalysis with engineered enzymes has provided more efficient routes for the production of active pharmaceutical agents. However, the potential of biocatalysis to assist in early-stage drug discovery campaigns remains largely untapped. In this study, we have developed a biocatalytic strategy for the construction of sp3-rich polycyclic compounds via the intramolecular cyclopropanation of benzothiophenes and related heterocycles.

Continue Reading

Cover JACS on supramolecular masks

The JACS journal features on its inside inner cover the recently published research article “Regioswitchable Bingel Bis-Functionalization of Fullerene C70 via Supramolecular Masks” by Valentina Iannace, Clara Sabrià and Prof. Xavi Ribas of the QBIS-CAT group and Dr. Ferran Feixas of the TCBioSys group at the Institute of Computational Chemistry and Catalysis (IQCC) of the University of Girona, also in collaboration with

Continue Reading

IQCC opened its doors to 95 high-school students from INS Narcís Monturiol, INS Montgrí, INS Celestí Bellera and INS Josep Brugulat

A few times a year, the IQCC opens its doors and gives the opportunity to high-school students to know our work through exciting lectures and computational and experimental workshops. This provides the secondary school pupils the possibility to get a feel for the research and have real-time chemistry in their hands. Last 8th February, it

Continue Reading

Controlling Monoterpene Isomerization by Guiding Challenging Carbocation Rearrangement Reactions in Engineered Squalene-Hopene Cyclases

The interconversion of monoterpenes is facilitated by a complex network of carbocation rearrangement pathways. Controlling these isomerization pathways is challenging when using common Brønsted and Lewis acid catalysts, which often produce product mixtures that are difficult to separate. In contrast, natural monoterpene cyclases exhibit high control over the carbocation rearrangement reactions but are reliant on

Continue Reading

Small-pore hydridic frameworks store densely packed hydrogen

Nanoporous materials have attracted great attention for gas storage, but achieving high volumetric storage capacity remains a challenge. Here, by using neutron powder diffraction, volumetric gas adsorption, inelastic neutron scattering and first-principles calculations, we investigate a magnesium borohydride framework that has small pores and a partially negatively charged non-flat interior for hydrogen and nitrogen uptake.

Continue Reading

Talking with: Cristina García-Simon

Cristina García-Simon was graduated in Chemistry at the University of Girona and she performed the PhD in the Institut de Química Computacional i Catàlisi (IQCC) under the supervision of Prof. Xavi Ribas and Prof. Miquel Costas in the field of synthesis of molecular nanocapsules for supramolecular host-guest chemistry and enzyme-like catalysis. Then, she worked as a postdoctoral investigator

Continue Reading

Regioswitchable Bingel Bis-Functionalization of Fullerene C70 via Supramolecular Masks

Isomer-pure functionalized fullerenes are required to boost the development of fullerene chemistry in any field, but their multiple functionalization renders a mixture of regioisomers that are very difficult to purify by chromatography. For the specific case of C70, its nonspherical geometry makes its regioselective functionalization more challenging than that of spherical C60. In this work,

Continue Reading