News Archive - 2017

On July 21, the Nano Innovation Awards were awarded at the Center for NanoScience (LMU Munich). For the first time, candidates from all over Bavaria were invited to apply for the awards worth € 9.000. Three PhD students and one Master student from Würzburg and Munich won prizes for their innovative work in application-oriented nanoscience. The awardees were selected by an expert jury from industry, LMU, TUM and the Fraunhofer Institut EMFT.

Ion channels in the membrane vesicles that mediate intracellular protein transport play a crucial role in cell physiology. A method developed by an LMU team now allows them to be studied with greater specificity than ever before.

The Bavarian-based research network „Solar Technologies Go Hybrid“, in short SolTech, in which five Bavarian universities are collaborating to develop novel material systems for solar energy conversion, will be funded with a total amount of 17 million Euros for an additional five years by the Free State of Bavaria.

A theoretical study of the UV light induced reaction of the RNA-nucleobase uracil, carried out by LMU researchers, suggests that carefully shaped laser pulses can be used to trap the crucial intermediate state for detailed characterization.

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded four Advanced Investigator Grants to LMU researchers in the fields of biological chemistry, immunology, linguistics and artificial intelligence.

On June 19th and June 20th 2017 you may get information on the storage and handling of hazardous substances.

Am Freitag, den 10.03.2017 findet ein Schüler-Info-Tag für alle an Chemie oder Pharmazie interessierten Schüler statt.

Transition-metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions are indispensable tools for the construction of carbon-carbon bonds, which is of great importance for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. Boron organometallics have been extensively used for such reactions in medicinal chemistry, due to their broad availability and air- and moisture-stability, however many boronic esters have genotoxic properties which make their manipulations on an industrial scale especially difficult. In comparison, organozinc reagents display an excellent functional group compatibility and a better reactivity in coupling reactions. One of the most prominent applications for organozinc reagents is their use for the so-called Negishi cross-coupling, which earned its discoverer a share of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2010. Most of these reactions are catalyzed by palladium or nickel; however, these metals have the disadvantage of toxicity and/or high costs. In contrast, cobalt salts are an inexpensive and less toxic alternative for carbon-carbon bond forming reactions.