Akkattu T. Biju, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, talks about his career and his research, which focuses on transition-metal-free carbon–carbon and carbon–heteroatom bond-forming reactions and their application in organic synthesis. He uses, e.g., aryne chemistry and N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) organocatalysis.

Akkattu T. Biju studied chemistry at Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India, and received his Ph.D. from the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST), Trivandrum, Kerala, India, in 2007. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow with Tien-Yau Luh at National Taiwan University, followed by an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship working with Frank Glorius at the University of Münster, Germany. From 2011 to 2017, Biju was Senior Scientist in the Organic Chemistry Division of the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune, India. Since 2017, he has served as Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Science.

Among other honors, Biju has received a Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) Fellowship in 2001, the Indian Society of Chemists and Biologists (ISCB) Young Scientist Award in 2014, and the CRSI Bronze Medal from the Chemical Research Society of India in 2019. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Biju serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Heterocyclic Chemistry and has recently edited a book on N-Heterocyclic Carbenes in Organocatalysis.

• Biju group homepage

Article Information
https://doi.org/10.1002/chemv.201900103