Left to right: Fernando Albericio, Beatriz G. de la Torre, Mark Mason, Aaron Vannucci, Arnaud Voituriez, Susan Olesik, and Ryan Shenvi.
Researchers from four U.S. institutions as well as South Africa and France received a total of almost $200,000 in funding from the ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable (GCIPR) to advance green chemistry research in the pharmaceutical sciences.
“Providing grants to support advanced research represents a cornerstone of the ACS GCIPR strategy,” says Paul Richardson, Ph.D., director of oncology chemistry at Pfizer, and co-chair of the Roundtable. “The broad range of research initiatives funded by this current round of grant awards serves to highlight the diversity of the Roundtable’s activities.”
The Ignition Grant Program for Green Chemistry & Engineering Research funds novel and innovative ideas that have the potential to provide sustainable solutions to chemistry and engineering problems relevant to the pharmaceutical industry from discovery to manufacturing. The four winners will receive $25,000 each for a 6-month research timeline. The winners are:
Professor Fernando Albericio and professor Beatriz G. de la Torre from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa for their proposal, “Baroc, a Green α-Amino Protecting Group for Solid-Phase Peptide Synthesis.”
Professor Mark Mason, director of the School of Green Chemistry and Engineering at The University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio for “Iron-Catalyzed Cross-Coupling of Heterocycles.”
Assistant professor Aaron Vannucci from the University of South Carolina for his proposal, “A New Approach to Catalyst Immobilization Research: Designing Molecular Catalysts for Heterogeneous Catalysis.”
Arnaud Voituriez, research director at the Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles, France for his proposal, “Towards an Electro-Catalytic Wittig Reaction.”
The Roundtable’s analytical chemistry team sought a proposal to clearly define sustainable chromatographic, analytical and purification methodologies in the pharmaceutical industry. Professor Susan Olesik of The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio was awarded $46,996 for her proposal, “A Study of the Environmental Impact of Analytical and Preparative Scale Supercritical Fluid Chromatographic Processes.”
The Roundtable’s greener medicinal chemistry grant seeks to advance the development of precious metal-free cross-coupling methodology applicable to substrates such as heterocycles that are widely used in the industry. The $50,000 award goes to associate professor Ryan Shenvi from the department of chemistry at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California for his proposal, “C–N attached-ring synthesis by Markovnikov hydroamination.”
“We strongly believe that through these research collaborations, significant scientific breakthroughs will be realized to further the application of green chemistry within the pharmaceutical industry and beyond,” adds Richardson.
The ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable has awarded over $2.25 million in funding since their grant program began in 2007. You can learn more about the program at https://www.acsgcipr.org/advancing-research/