Vidi grant for Anna Hirsch and Edwin Otten

Drug discovery is a challenging undertaking. In a context where the pharmaceutical industry finds it increasingly difficult to develop new drugs, efficient access to novel molecular scaffolds is urgently needed. Dr. Anna Hirsch has been awarded a NWO Vidi grant to use dynamic combinatorial chemistry (DCC) in combination with fragment-based drug design, (de novo) structure-based drug design (SBDD) and multicomponent reactions to accelerate the drug-discovery process. Taken together, this research will further our knowledge of the molecular basis of DCC applied to targets of biomedical interest, lead to novel molecular scaffolds, interaction modes, bio-active compounds and ways to efficiently initiate the drug discovery process. The impact of this research extends to the health and well-being of society.

Dr. Edwin Otten has been awarded a NWO Vidi grant to develop new catalysts based on earth-abundant, inexpensive elements. In order to replace the precious metal catalysts that are currently in use, this project will develop a new strategy to mimic the reactivity of these metals. The prevalence of catalysts based on precious metals is due to their versatile electronic properties that allow redox-reactions in 2-electron steps, which are key to many important chemical transformations. This type of reactivity is generally not accessible to other (non-precious) elements. By making use of organic ligands that can participate in redox-reactions, the aim of this research is to replicate the catalytic properties of precious metals to non-scarce elements.