Sprekers 2022
Hier kan je de sprekers van dit jaar vinden en de onderwerpen die zij zullen behandelen.
Prof. dr. Jan van Maarseveen
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Jan van Maarseveen obtained obtained his Ph.D. in 1994 at the University of Nijmegen on the total synthesis of indole alkaloids. From 1994-1999 he joined Solvay-Pharmaceuticals as a farmacochemist. In november 1999 he moved back to academia and was promoted in 2015 to full professor. His research focusses on the development of methodology to enable the synthesis of small and strained cyclic peptides together with the development of enantioselective catalytic methods with applications in alkaloid synthesis. Currently, the group is fully dedicated to covalent scaffold-based methodology development towards mechanically interlocked molecules. Jan obtained several prices of which the “Teacher of the year of the University of Amsterdam in 2012” award is the most prestiguous one. In 2016 he was awarded the KNCV Van Marum Medal for his contributions to chemistry outreach and excellence in teaching. His second passion is flying, in summertime in gliders and in wintertime powered gliders.
Lasso peptides share an N-terminal macrolactam of 7/9 residues through which the linear exocyclic C-terminal part is threaded and mechanically locked. It has been thoroughly studied that the intriguing lasso-fold that is present in the majority of natural lasso-peptides possesses an exceptional proteolytic and conformational stability. Their fascinating topology, high compactness, stability, and biological activities make them ultimate targets for synthetic methodology development. Although several groups embarked on this subject, the fact that almost twenty years after their structure elucidation no general synthesis has been published yet underscores their complexity. In other words, the 2016 Nobel prize-winning methodologies toward rotaxanes/catenanes that are mainly based on supramolecular mutual positioning of the ring-thread fragments, fall short. I will present to you our recently developed template-based clipping and backfolding concepts and a combination of both that should allow future synthetic access to mechanically interlocked peptides.
Dr. Roxanne Kieltyka
Leiden University
Roxanne Kieltyka was born in Toronto, Canada. She carried out her doctoral thesis in the group of Hanadi Sleiman at McGill University on the development of novel platinum-based complexes for the targeting of G-quadruplexes as an anticancer therapy. She then performed postdoctoral work in the group of at the Eindhoven University of Technology in Eindhoven, The Netherlands on the synthesis of supramolecular polymers for application in the biomedical field. Roxanne is an associate professor within the group at Leiden University. She was named one of the by C&E News and has recently obtained an ERC Starting Grant.
The application of adaptive materials in areas from biomedicine to electronics has invigorated the development of new supramolecular materials with specific function. Their easy processing due to their non-covalent character permits the facile introduction of biomolecules, such as peptides, and their responsiveness to different stimuli is attractive for manifold applications in the biomedical field. To realize their use, there is a need for structurally simple monomers with high synthetic accessibility that can robustly self-assemble into polymeric architectures in the presence of complex molecular cargo. Squaramides, structurally minimal ditopic hydrogen-bonding units, show tremendous potential in this regard due to their ease of synthesis starting from commercially available precursors and ability to be introduced into a variety of monomers. In this talk, I will share our exploration of the squaramide synthon for the construction of supramolecular polymers that can be used for biomedical applications such as drug delivery and 3D cell culture.
Dr. Peter Ngene
Utrecht University
Peter Ngene is an assistant professor in the Materials Chemistry and Catalysis (MCC) group- Utrecht University. He obtained his PhD in Utrecht
(2012) and was a postdoc for 3 years at TU-Delft. His research is focused on the development of nanostructured materials for the conversion and
efficient storage of intermittent electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. This include novel materials for next-generation
batteries, fuel cells, electrolyzers, reversible hydrogen storage and electrochemical production of energy carriers such ammonia. His work has made significant contributions to the field of energy storage, resulting in several inter(national) awards and recognitions. He is the recipient of the 2012/2013 KNCV best PhD thesis award (Physical and Inorganic Chemistry), the Next Einstein Forum (NEF) fellowship from the African union as one of Africa's leading young scientists, and the NLNG-Nigerian Science Prize 2018.
Efficient energy storage is crucial to deal with the intermittency of renewable energy sources and thereby enable us transit from fossil fuels to a sustainable society based on wind and solar
energy. Chemical (e.g. using hydrogen, ammonia) and electrochemical (in batteries) energy storage are seen as most promising technologies for small to large scale electricity storage, and for electric vehicles.
Novel materials are required to improve the efficiency and safety of these technologies while reducing the cost. Using selected examples, I will present metal hydrides (such as LiBH 4 , NaBH 4 , KH) as a multi-functional materials for a variety of energy conversion and storage applications. I will discuss how approaches such as nanostructuring/nanoconfinement and interface engineering can be used to control the properties of metal hydride based nanocomposite materials, enabling their applications in high capacity reversible hydrogen storage and next generation batteries with high energy capacity and
improved safety.
Prof. dr. Jos Oomens
Radboud University
Jos Oomens received his PhD from Radboud University in 1996 on a subject in high-resolution molecular spectroscopy. In 1999, he joined the group of Prof. Gerard Meijer at the FOM institute Rijnhuizen (now DIFFER). Here, he started to apply the FELIX laser to obtain IR spectra of gaseous molecular ions in an ion trap mass spectrometer. Initial studies focused on the spectral fingerprints of ionized polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), hypothesized as constituents of interstellar clouds. Together with US researchers, he developed an FTICR high-resolution mass spectrometer for infrared ion spectroscopy, which was employed in ion chemistry studies aimed at resolving molecular structures for ionized molecules and complexes. In 2011, he received an NWO VICI grant that enabled him to build a new ion spectroscopy platform with analytical sensitivity at the FELIX lab that moved to Radboud University in 2013. Here he started to develop analytical application of ion spectroscopy for molecular structure identification, collaborating e.g. with researchers from the Radboudumc.
Mass spectrometry (MS) is one of the cornerstones of analytical chemistry, especially in the analysis of complex mixtures: samples that contain thousands of molecular components in varying concentrations. Both sensitivity and resolving power of MS are unparalleled by other analytical methods. However, determination of molecular structures on the basis of MS data is challenging, as a single molecular weight value may correspond to many structural isomers.
I will show how MS can be integrated with infrared (IR) spectroscopy, so that IR spectra can be recorded for individual, mass-selectively isolated components in a complex mixture. [1]. In contrast to a mass spectrum, an IR spectrum provides diagnostic vibrational frequencies from which the molecular structure can be deciphered. Interestingly, reconstructing the molecular structure from the vibrational spectrum can be achieved through computationally predicted IR spectra, opening avenues towards reference standard-free molecular structure identification. A prominent example that I will showcase involves biomarker discovery for inborn errors of metabolism. [2,3]
[1] Martens et al. Anal. Chim. Acta, 1093, 1 (2020)
[2] E. van Outersterp et al. Anal. Chem. 93, 15340 (2021)
[3] F.H. Engelke et al. J. Clin. Invest. 131, e148272 (2021)
Dr. Klaas Giesbertz
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Klaas Giesbertz is an assistent professor in the Theoretical Chemistry group at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU). He did the bachelor physics and the topmaster nano science at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. In 2010 he obtained his PhD cum laude at the VU under supervision of Evert-Jan Baerends and Oleg Gritsenko with the thesis titled “Time-dependent one-body reduced density matrix functional theory”. After a two-year postdoc at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) in the group of Robert van Leeuwen, he returned to the VU on a VENI grant to continu his work on one-body reduced density matrix (1RDM) functional theory. His research group focusses on improving 1RDM functional theory and other electronic structure methods at the level of mathematical foundations, practical approximations and implementation.
Molecular orbital (MO) theory is a very important tool in chemistry to rationalise chemical reactions and the response to external perturbations like catalysts, substituents and irradiation. There is not a single MO theory, since there are different ways how to construct the orbitals. In his lecture, Klaas Giesbertz will explain the essence of the two most prominent versions of MO theory: Hartree–Fock (HF) and density functional theory (DFT). He will explain how both MO theories fail to describe the breaking of chemical bonds in practice and how their performance can be improved.
Dr. Danny Broere
Utrecht University
Danny Broere is a tenure track assistant professor in the Organic Chemistry & Catalysis group at Utrecht University (UU). He studied chemistry at the Hogeschool Utrecht (HU) and the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. In 2016 he obtained his PhD cum laude under supervision of Jarl Ivar van der Vlugt and Joost Reek, working on redox-active ligands. After his PhD, Danny worked as a NWO Rubicon Postdoctoral fellow in the group of Patrick Holland at Yale University on a NWO Rubicon fellowship. In September 2018, Danny started his independent research program at UU. He finds his inspiration for his research in the elegant multimetallic architectures that natural metalloenzymes use to catalyze challenging chemical transformations. His research group focusses on obtaining fundamental understanding of how multiple metals can work together to activate strong chemical bonds, and use this knowledge to develop multinuclear homogeneous catalysts for reactions of relevance to the energy transition.
His lecture will revolve around the question: “Are Two Better than One?”. In search for an answer Danny will discuss how nature exploits cofactors containing multiple metal atoms in close proximity to catalytically make and break chemical bonds. Subsequently, he will take a deep dive into the synthetic systems developed in his group and how these display distinct stoichiometric and catalytic reactivity from their mononuclear counterparts.
Prof. dr. Mario van der Stelt
Leiden University
Mario van der Stelt received his Ph.D (cum laude) in chemistry from Utrecht University in 2002. He was a project-leader of multidisciplinary drug discovery teams in Merck Research Laboratories (Oss). In 2012 he moved to Leiden University and founded the department of Molecular Physiology. He became a full professor in Molecular Physiology in 2017. His research interests are focused on lipid and kinase signaling in cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. His vision is to work in multidisciplinary teams to design, synthesize and apply chemical tools and concepts to understand biology with the ultimate goal to improve human health. Key to his research is the development and integration of chemical biology and computational techniques to predict and profile drug-target interactions. In 2019, he was selected as a principal investigator of Oncode Institute. He has co-authored >115 papers and patents and won several (inter)national prizes, including Prix Galien Research and a VICI-award from NWO.
Lipid transmitters, such as endocannabinoids and eicosanoids, play important roles in the central nervous system and regulate physiological processes in health and disease that include pain, emotion, addiction and neuroinflammation. Chemical probes that perturb lipid transmitter biosynthesis and metabolism are needed to understand the function of these pathways in the brain. Here, I will present our work on the development of chemical probes to study endocannabinoid biology. I will discuss how chemical proteomics can be used to guide the development of selective probes and how they can be used in the various stages of drug discovery. [1-3]:
[1] Mock et al. J. Med. Chem., 2021, 64, 481
[2] Mock et al. Nature Chemical Biology, 2020, 16, 667
[3] Van Esbroeck et al., Science, 2017, 356 1084
Prof. dr. Luis Liz-Marzan
Center for Cooperative Research in Biomaterials, CIC biomaGUNE
Luis Liz-Marzán is Ikerbasque Professor at the Center for Cooperative Research in Biomaterials, CIC biomaGUNE, in San Sebastián (Spain), where he also served as the Scientific Director from 2012 to 2021. He graduated in Chemistry from the University of Santiago de Compostela, was postdoc at the Van ‘t Hoff Laboratory at Utrecht University (1003-1995) and Professor at the University of Vigo (1995–2012), as well as visiting professor at various research institutions worldwide. Liz-Marzán is co-author of over 500 publications and 9 patents, and advisor of 35 PhD students and 60 postdocs, many of them currently holding academic positions. He has also held various editorial positions, currently as an Executive Editor of ACS Nano. Liz-Marzán’s research focuses on the colloidal synthesis and self-assembly of metal nanocrystals, as well as the characterization and application of their plasmonic properties. More recently, he focused on the biomedical applications of plasmonic nanostructures.
Noble metal nanoparticles display unique optical properties, related to localized surface plasmon resonances (collective oscillations of conduction electrons), which give rise to well-defined absorption and scattering peaks in the visible and near-IR spectral range. Such resonances can be tuned through the size and shape of the nanoparticles, and are highly sensitive towards dielectric changes around the particles and to their specific organization within assemblies. Therefore, metal nanoparticles have been proposed as ideal candidates for biosensing and bioimaging applications.
This presentation will focus on the application of colloid chemistry to the synthesis of metal nanoparticles, where surfactants play a crucial role for the definition of the final, nanoscale morphology. As a result, a variety of optical/plasmonic phenomena can be optimized, with a wide range of potential applications.
Sprekers 2021
Hier kan je de sprekers van PAC 2021 "Impact" vinden, en de abstracts van de talks die ze hebben gegeven.
Prof. dr. M. Stanley Whittingham
Binghamton University
Stanley Whittingham is a SUNY distinguished professor of chemistry and materials science and engineering at Binghamton and the 2019 Chemistry Nobel Laureate. He received his BA and D Phil degrees in chemistry from Oxford University, where he is an honorary Fellow of New College. He has been active in Li-batteries since 1971 when he won the Young Author Award of the Electrochemical Society for his work on beta-alumina. In 1972, he joined Exxon and discovered the role of intercalation in battery reactions, which resulted in the first commercial lithium rechargeable batteries that were built by Exxon Enterprises. In 1988 he returned to academia at SUNY Binghamton to initiate a program in materials chemistry. In 2018 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering and received the Turnbull Award from MRS. He is a Fellow of the Materials Research Society.
His lecture will be about the lithium-ion batteries and their role in enabling the large-scale introduction of renewable energy. Talking about the opportunities and technical challenges which will need to be overcome to further advance the technology.
Prof. dr. Anouk M. Rijs
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Anouk Rijs is full professor of Analytics of Biomolecular Interactions in the BioAnalytical Chemistry Division at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is an expert on IR action spectroscopy combined with mass spectrometry for structural characterization of biomolecules such as peptides, proteins and carbohydrates. Recently, she was awarded an NWO-VICI grant by which she aims to unravel and ultimately control the protein aggregation mechanism of neurodegenerative diseases using mass spectrometry hyphenated with IR spectroscopy and ion mobility.
Moreover, in collaboration with the Amsterdam University Medical Center and the University of Manchester, she works on the identification of biomarkers for Parkinson’s Disease. In addition, she is a board-member of the NWO Fundamentals and Methods in Chemistry research community, physics board-member at the Lorentz Center, member of the advisory board of Analysis and Sensing (Chemistry Europe, Wiley) and Deputy Chair of the journal “Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics” (PCCP) of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Her lecture will deal the analysation of peptide and protein aggregation, the process where soluble functioning proteins turn into insoluble amyloid aggregates. The unavoidble build-up of these aggregates is directly linked to age-related, neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Currently there is not much known about the early-steps of this process, as there are no analytical methods which allows us to probe the aggregation process. Therefore, the use of IR spectroscopy as possible structural probe in mass spectrometry will be discussed. Combined with other methods, the aim is to elucidate and visualize the early stages of aggregating peptides, and ultimately direct their self-assembly process.
Prof. dr. Sylvestre A. Bonnet
Universiteit Leiden
Sylvestre Bonnet is Full Professor in Bioinorganic Chemistry at Leiden University. He obtained his PhD in 2005 at the University of Strasbourg, France, in the group of Nobel Laureate Jean-Pierre Sauvage. He then moved to The Netherlands as a postdoc, where he successively worked in the groups of Gerard van Koten (Utrecht), Jan Reedijk (Leiden), and Antoinette Killian and Bert Klein Gebbink (Utrecht). Between 2009 and 2014 he completed a Tenure Track position in Inorganic Chemistry at Leiden University, where he was tenured in 2015 and became full professor in 2020. He obtained several prestigious grants, including a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (2013), and three young investigator grants (VENI 2008, VIDI 2012, VICI 2019) from the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Since 2015 he is Fellow of the Young Academy of Europe, and in 2017 he became YAE Board Member. His expertise lies at the crossing point between bioinorganic chemistry, photochemistry, and lipid membranes. His current research interests are anticancer photoactivated chemotherapy, supramolecular photocatalysis, and upconversion.
Traditionally, photochemists prepare new molecules to study their photochemical properties, just because they like it. However, when photoactive molecules are meant for phototherapeutic purposes, it becomes very relevant for a chemist to also ask oneself in which biological model these molecules should be tested, and for which disease exactly these molecules should be tested. His lecture will deal with his journey as a photochemist in the world of anticancer phototherapy and how this journey has pushed him to develop his knowledge way beyond chemistry, towards biology, cancer models, and oncology. He will first describe the photochemistry of the compounds developed in my group, then discuss the different in vitro cancer models they have used to test them, and finally their efforts to show activity in vivo, as the first steps towards clinical trials.
Dr. J. Chris Slootweg
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Chris Slootweg was born in Haarlem (The Netherlands) in 1978 and received his undergraduate education from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2001. After earning his Ph.D. in 2005 under the supervision of Prof. Koop Lammertsma, he pursued postdoctoral studies at the ETH Zürich with Peter Chen. In 2006, he returned to VU to initiate his independent career. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2014, and moved to the University of Amsterdam in 2016. The mission of his laboratory at the UvA is to educate students at the intersection of fundamental physical organic chemistry, main-group chemistry, and circular chemistry.
In this lecture, He will highlight the importance of using waste as resource as well as stress the need to develop Circular Technologies, which use chemistry as enabling tool, to target the conservation of critical raw materials (element scarcity) as well as contribute to solving pressing waste problems. Such an endeavor will combine molecular design and synthesis with the environmental fate and impact of current products targeting safe by design (no persistent, bio-accumulative, and toxic compounds; green chemistry) and design for re-use, recovery and recycling (circular chemistry). He will detail his lab's bottom-up physical (in)organic chemistry approach to develop novel chemical conversions using one-electron processes that aim at using dinitrogen and methane as resource.
Sprekers 2020
Hier kunt u de sprekers van het PAC-Symposium 'Next Level' vinden:
Prof. dr. Sason Shaik
University of Jeruzalem
Sason Shaik is a Saerree K. and Louis P. Fiedler Professor of Chemistry at the Hebrew University, whose main interests are in bonding, chemical reactivity, metalloenzymes, oxidation and reduction by transition metal complexes, and electric field effects in chemistry. Alongside a variety of computational tools, he uses valence bond theory as a conceptual frame. He developed a general Valence Bond model for chemical reactivity, showed the existence of new bonding motifs, and elucidated structure, mechanism and dynamics in Cytochrome P450 and nonheme enzymes. His main recent awards are the Schrödinger Medal (WATOC 2007); the August-Wilhelm-von-Hofmann-Medal (the German Chemical Society, 2012); Membership in the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science (2015); and the three medals awarded by the Israel Chemical Society, including the Gold Medal (2017), which is the highest award of the society. Occasionally, he writes poetry and essays on a variety of topics.
His talk will discuss the potential of using oriented-external-electric-fields (OEEFs) as effectors of chemical change.
Prof. dr. Lies Bouwman
Leiden University
Elisabeth Bouwman received her Ph.D. degree in 1990 at Leiden University. She carried out postdoctoral research at the TU Delft and in the USA at Indiana University in Bloomington. With a fellowship of the KNAW she then developed her own research line in Leiden, where she is now head of the group “Metals in Catalysis, Biomimetics & Inorganic Materials”. Her research interests comprise both fundamental and applied aspects of coordination and organometallic chemistry. Her aim in this research is to understand the relation between the ligand and metal-complex structures and the catalytic properties at the molecular level, and make use of this knowledge to develop new catalytic reactions.
Her talk will be about the development of an ethene sensor using copper compounds.
Prof. dr. Tom Grossman
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Tom Grossmann studied chemistry at the Humboldt University Berlin (Germany), including undergraduate research with Peter Vollhardt at the University of California Berkeley (USA). In 2008, he received his PhD with Oliver Seitz at the Humboldt University Berlin. After postdoctoral research in the group of Gregory Verdine at Harvard University (USA), he became group leader at the Technical University and the Chemical Genomics Centre in Dortmund (Germany). Since 2016, he is full professor at the VU University Amsterdam, currently being supported by an ERC Starting Grant.
The lecture will highlight design principles and synthetic strategies that enable the conformational control of complex molecules ranging from relatively small peptidomimetics to entire protein domains.
Prof. dr. Sander Woutersen
Physical Chemistry at the Van ’t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences of the University of Amsterdam
Sander Woutersen is professor of Physical Chemistry at the Van ’t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences of the University of Amsterdam. He studied chemistry in Amsterdam and did his PhD research at NWO-institute AMOLF. After obtaining his degree, he did a postdoc with Peter Hamm at the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy in Berlin, and became project leader at AMOLF in 2001. In 2006, he moved to the University of Amsterdam. In his research, Sander uses spectroscopy to address research questions at the interface of chemistry and physics.
In the first part of the talk we will have a look at "biological water". In the second part of the talk, we discuss the solubilities of the two simplest polyethers: PEG (repeating unit -CH2-CH2-O-), which is present in almost every cosmetic, and POM (repeating unit -CH2-O-), a plastic known to every chemistry student as the brightly-coloured Keck clips for connecting glassware.
Dr. Laura Filion
Utrecht University
Laura Filion has a masters in physics from McMaster University, Canada, and a PhD from Utrecht University, Netherlands. After working as a post-doc at Cambridge University, UK, she moved back to Utrecht University, where she currently works as an assistant professor in soft condensed matter. Her research focuses on using classical statistical physics and computer simulations to examine the self-assembly of colloidal particles, both in and out of equilibrium. In particular, she has explored a range of entropy-driven phase transitions, developed new methods to predict crystal structures, examined the nucleation of crystalline phases, explored crystal defects in colloidal crystals, and studied motility-induced phase separation in active particles. Recently, she has started to explore how machine learning techniques can aid in the study of soft matter systems.
In this talk, she will review briefly some of the recent applications of machine learning to soft matter systems, and show how we have used unsupervised learning methods to identify structures in self-assembled colloidal systems.
Dr. Eelco Ruijter
Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Eelco Ruijter (1977) studied Chemistry at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam and continued as a PhD student with Prof. Wessjohann at the VU and the Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry (Halle/Saale, Germany), obtaining his PhD in 2005. By then, he had joined the Liskamp group at Utrecht University (the Netherlands) as a postdoctoral fellow working on chemistry-based proteomics. In December 2006, he returned to the VU Amsterdam as a tenure track Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry. He obtained tenure in 2012 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018. His research interests include the development of new synthetic strategies towards complex molecules of high biological relevance making use of cascade processes and asymmetric catalysis. He is author of nearly 100 publications in international, peer-reviewed scientific journals and five book chapters, editor of two volumes in a book series, and co-inventor of four patents.
The talk will be about The mystery of compound X – a tale of serendipity, creativity, and next-level reaction mechanisms!
Dr. Mike Preuss
Leiden University
Mike received his PhD in 2013 from the Chair of Algorithm Engineering at TU Dortmund, Germany, and was with ERCIS at the WWU Muenster, Germany, from 2013 to 2018. His research interests focus on the field of evolutionary algorithms for real-valued problems, namely on multi-modal and multi-objective optimization, and on computational intelligence and machine learning methods for computer games. Recently, he is also involved in Social Media Computing, and he is publications chair of the upcoming multi-disciplinary MISDOOM conference 2019. He is associate editor of the IEEE ToG journal and has been member of the organizational team of several conferences in the last years, and notably is general (co-)chair of the PPSN 2020 conference in Leiden.
The talk will be about novel developments in AI that lead to the current AI hype and how a large part of this is rooted in Game AI. But while AI methods make more and more progress, they are also applied in other fields more, an important one of them being Chemistry.
Prof.dr.ir. Hans-Gerd Janssen
Unilever
Prof.dr.ir. Hans-Gerd Janssen obtained his MSc and PhD degree from the Eindhoven University of Technology. After obtaining his PhD degree he joined the Eindhoven University as an associate professor. In 1999 he moved to Unilever where he became the science leader for chromatography and mass spectrometry. From 2004 he was part-time professor at the University of Amsterdam. Since 2019 he holds a special chair on ‘recognition-based analytical chemistry’ at Wageningen University.
Prof. Janssen’s research interests include the development of novel separation systems for the analysis of complex samples. Fighting food waste with miniaturized and automated instrumentation has his special interest. Prof. Janssen has published more than 200 papers including two patents and eleven book chapters. His passion is to apply novel developments from surrounding fields to develop new analytical methods and techniques that ultimately allow us to solve analytical issues we were not able to solve before.
The talk will be about developing simple analytical devices that can help the consumer, at home, in the kitchen, to assess food freshness. Simple chromatographic separation system exploiting purpose-functionalized selective surfaces are used to detect marker compounds for food aging. These include hexanal for aged edible oils, or putrescine and cadaverine to detect spoiled meat.
Dr. Eric Kirchner
AkzoNobel
Eric Kirchner studied physics in Utrecht. In his PhD work in theoretical chemistry at the Free University of Amsterdam he predicted molecular dissociation and surface structure of crystals. This was done in close collaboration with experimental physicists.
He worked for ICT company Exact and for the national environmental research institute RIVM, then joined AkzoNobel R&D in 1996.
Since then he obtained roles as research physicist for Business Unit Car Refinishes, then team leader, project lead and currently Senior Color Scientist for all paints and coatings. Together with suppliers, Eric led the innovative research that resulted in the launch of a new color instrument that would become the standard in the global automotive OEM industry.
Eric collaborates with several universities and institutes, as well as with the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum. He co-authored more than 60 scientific articles related to color, and presented his work at numerous international conferences.
The talk will be about the expertise of AkzoNobel to use physical-chemical analysis techniques that helped restore the painting Field with Irises near Arles in the Van Gogh museum.
Prof. dr. Andries Meijerink
Utrecht University
Andries Meijerink received his MSc and PhD degree in Chemistry at Utrecht University. After a post-doc in Madison (University of Wisconsin) he returned to Utrecht in 1991. In 1996, at the age of 32, he was appointed at the chair of Solid State Chemistry in the Debye Institute of Utrecht University where he leads an active group in the field of luminescence spectroscopy of quantum dots and lanthanide ions. In the field of lanthanide ions his work involves fundamental research on the energy level structure of both 4fn and 4fn-15d states and finding new concepts related to applications in solar cells, LEDs and scintillators, including the discovery of downconversion. Andries Meijerink received several awards, including the Proton Pluim, Shell Incentive Award (1995), the Gold Medal of the Royal Dutch Chemical Society (1999), the Centennial Award for Luminescence and Display Materials from the ECS (2002) and the Gilles-Holst Medal of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences in 2019.
In this lecture, a short historical introduction to multi-photon conversion phosphors will be followed by an overview of recent developments of efficient up- and downconversion materials and their applications.
Prof. dr. Bert Windhorst
Vrije Universiteit
Bert Windhorst currently holds a position as professor in radiopharmaceutical chemistry at the VU University Medical Center, where he heads the radiopharmaceutical chemistry section of the department of Radiology & Nuclear Medicine with in total 35 people (staff, post-doc, PhD and technicians), chemists, biologist and engineers.
His main research interest is in the development and production of 11C and 18F radiolabeled compounds for clinical PET. He collaborates intensively with clinical researchers in research projects aimed to better understanding of disease by use of PET, personalized medicine and he collaborates with pharmaceutical companies on the application of PET in drug development.
The talk will be about the research of a typical radiopharmaceutical chemist will be discussed to demonstrate the valuable contribution the radiopharmaceutical chemist can make in clinical research and patient care by supporting nuclear imaging to the next level.
Dr. Hans Heus
Radboud University
Hans Heus studied Chemistry and obtained his PhD degree at the University of Leiden. For his postdoctoral research, he went to the University of Colorado at Boulder to work on Hammerhead catalytic RNA together with Arthur Pardi and Olke Uhlenbeck. After his postdoctoral research, he moved back to the Netherlands to the Radboud University in Nijmegen to continue his research on structure-dynamics of RNA molecules. More recently, the focus is on building a synthetic cell using Mycoplasma as basis and aptamer technology in bionanosensing and cellular regulation.
In his lecture, he will highlight the development and impact of aptamer technology and illustrate the usage of polymeric aptamers in diagnostics and therapeutics of breast cancer.
Prof. dr. Yuriy Román
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Prof. Román was born in Mexico City, Mexico. He obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 2002 and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, also in Chemical Engineering, under the guidance of Prof. James Dumesic. At UW he worked on developing catalytic strategies to convert biomass-derived carbohydrates into platform chemicals. Before joining the department of Chemical Engineering at MIT, he completed a two-year postdoc at Caltech, working with Prof. Mark E. Davis on the synthesis of zeolites and mesoporous materials for the activation of small molecules and biomass-derived oxygenates. He has been awarded the SHPE Outstanding Young Investigator, the NSF CAREER, Aris, AICHE CRE Young Investigator, and ACS Early Career in Catalysis awards.
In my lecture, I will show how advanced synthesis techniques can be coupled with rigorous reactivity and characterization studies to unearth unique synergies in nanostructured catalysts. More specifically, I will discuss the use of molecular engineering tools to design nanostructured earth-abundant heterometallic early transition metal carbide (TMC) nanoparticles as a novel platform to replace (or at least drastically reduce) noble metal utilization in electro- and thermo-catalytic applications. I will present a new method to synthesize TMCs covered in atomically-thin layers of noble metals with exquisite control over composition, size, crystal phase, and purity. Controlling these features has direct consequences on the electronic (and thus catalytic) properties of the noble metal overlayer.
Roderick Tas will replace Lisa Dongen-Timmer as a parallel lecturer.
After completing my Bachelor degree in Biology, I started the master Molecular and Cellular Life Sciences at Utrecht University. During my masters I used advanced live- and super-resolution methods to study selective transport in neurons in the Biophysics group of Prof. Dr. Lukas Kapitein. After obtaining my master degree, I started a PhD and continued to study how neuronal cytoskeleton organization affects selective transport in neurons under the supervision of professor Kapitein. As part of my PhD, I combined biochemistry and single-molecule localization microscopy to develop a super-resolution technique to visualize microtubules and directly impose their orientation. This led to new insights about the neuronal microtubule architecture and how this affects selective sorting into the axon and dendrites. Additionally, during my PhD, I had to opportunity to receive training at the marine biological laboratory (Woods Hole, MA) in the Physiology course. As of May 2019 I started as a post-doctoral researcher in the group of Ilja Voets
Sprekers 2019
Hier kunt u de sprekers van het PAC-Symposium 'Back to the Future' vinden:
Prof. dr. Lucy Carpenter
Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories
University of York
Prof. dr. Lucy Carpenter will give the first plenary lecture during the symposium. Her group focusses on atmospheric chemistry at the University of York. During her lecture, she will focus on the role of halogens on the chemistry of the troposphere. Especially iodine chemistry with ozone will be discussed. The lecture will indicate the chemistry of halogenated gasses and their impact on the atmosphere.
Prof. Marc Robert
Laboratoire d’Electrochimie Moléculaire
Paris Diderot University
Prof. Marc Robert will give the second plenary lecture during the symposium. His group focuses on reactivity and catalysis of molecular systems using electron transfers. His talk will be about the electrochemical reduction of CO2 to generate renewable fuels. He will explain the use of hybrid systems that combine homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis for the CO2 reduction.
Prof. dr. Gerard van Koten
Debye Institute of Nanomaterials Science
Utrecht University
Prof. dr. Gerard van Koten is a Honorary Distinguished University Professor at Utrecht University and Cardiff University (UK). His research comprises the study of fundamental processes in organometallic chemistry and the development of organometallic complexes (viz. pincer-metal complexes) as homogeneous catalysts. During the symposium he will give an overview of the past 50 years of chemistry and explain how the eyesight of the chemist (including his own) has been sharpened from a misty one to an unexpectedly, sharpened level of single atoms and molecules.
Prof. dr. Dirk J. Broer
Department Functional Organic Materials and Devices
Eindhoven University of Technology
Prof. dr. Dirk J. Broer is a full professor at Eindhoven University. Before his academic career he worked at Philips where he worked on optical data storage. His talk will be about the surprising and functional properties of reactive mesogens or liquid crystal polymers. He will give an overview of how liquid crystal networks are embedded in flat TVs and how they can have a future in robotics.
Prof. dr. ir. Bert Weckhuysen
Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science
Utrecht University
The group of prof. dr. Bert Weckhuysen is especially known for in-situ & operando spectroscopy of catalytic solids under realistic conditions. He will discuss the use and design of solid catalysts, focused on the conversion of carbondioxide. Additionally, he will present the advances in spectroscopy of catalytic solids and show the difficulties of making a molecular movie of a catalyst.
Dr. ir. Annemieke Petrignani
Laboratory astrochemistry
University of Amsterdam
The research team of dr. ir. Annemieke Petrignani currently concentrates on astrochemistry with a focus on the origin of life. In her lecture she will discuss the organic chemistry occurring in space and the photochemistry that they carry out in the lab to find out what is happening or rather already has happened in space.
Dr. ir. Jarl Ivar van der Vlugt
Homogeneous, Bioinspired & Supramolecular Catalysis
University of Amsterdam
Dr. ir. Jarl Ivar van der Vlugt works on designing and exploiting ligand-centered designs and new strategies for small molecule activation at the University of Amsterdam. During his lecture, he will give an overview of the relevant advances in organometallic chemistry and catalysis, with a focus on redox-active ligand designs.
Dr. Francesco Buda
Leiden Institute of Chemistry
Leiden University
The group of dr. Fransesco Buda at Leiden University currently focuses on key processes in natural photosynthesis to provide theoretical insights for efficient photo-induced charge separation and water splitting. In his lecture, he will present an overview of developments and applications of ab initio molecular dynamics simulations, with a focus on the challenges observed within his research into natural and artificial photosynthesis.
Prof. dr. Gerard Roelfes
Biomolecular Chemistry & Catalysis
University of Groningen
Prof. Gerard Roelfes from the University of Groningen will in his parallel talk discuss the creation of new enzymes that are specialized in certain reactions. He will speak about the design of these enzymes and how they can be optimized by directed evolution.
Prof. dr. Beatriz Noheda
Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials
University of Groningen
The team of prof. dr. Beatriz Noheda develops materials for future electronics. In her talk, Betariz Noheda will discuss the challenges related to the synthesis and characterization of oxide thin films, since these films are key elements in electronic devices.
Gert Wilgenhof
PerkinElmer
Gert Wilgenhof studied Commercial Chemistry at the Saxion University of Applied sciences. At the age of 22 he started as a salesmen of instruments for laboratories and nowadays he is a Sales Manager at the BeNeLux department of PerkinElmer. In his talk he will explain the world of commerce in science and how this field developed over the years. And he will ask maybe the most important question for you: would you be a suitable candidate to enter the world of commerce in science?
Dr. Frank Hollmann
Department of Biotechnology
Delft University of Technology
The research of dr. Frank Hollmann focusses around the use of enzymes for a more sustainable chemical industry. His talk will be about the use of natural enzymes as biocatalysts to offer shorter and environmentally more benign synthesis routes than the traditional chemistry.
Niels Hauwert MSc
Division of Medicinal Chemistry
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
The research of Niels Hauwert focusses on the development of photoactive ligands for histamine receptors. During his talk, he will discuss the general approach towards GPCR photopharmacology and his recent contributions to photoisomerisable azobenzene-based GPCR ligands.
Dr. Stijn Gremmen
ZoBio
Dr. Stijn Gremmen is the Head of Chemistry from ZoBio. He is working in a team of chemists, biologists and physicists to find novel molecules for clients in the pharmaceutical industry. ZoBio is one of the early adaptors of fragment-based drug discovery, which will be introduced during the talk.