Assistant Professor Dmitry Katayev, University of Bern, Switzerland, has received the Werner Prize of the Swiss Chemical Society (SCS). The award was presented during the Spring Meeting of the Swiss Chemical Society in Zurich on April 24, 2025.
The Werner Prize honors a Swiss scientist or scientist working in Switzerland under the age of 40 for outstanding independent chemical research. Professor Dmitry Katayev receives the award “for his important milestones advancing light and electricity driven carbon-hydrogen (CH) functionalization methodologies for a variety of substances, spanning from common feedstocks to complex molecules and materials”. The prize is endowed with CHF 10’000 and a medal in bronze.
Dmitry Katayev studied at the D. I. Mendeleev University of Technology, Higher Chemical College of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, where he obtained his MSc in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering in 2008. He received his Ph.D. in the group of E. P. Kündig, University of Geneva, Switzerland. After postdoctoral stays with L. J. Gooßen at TU Kaiserslautern, Germany, and A. Togni, ETH Zürich, Switzerland, he becamean Assistant Professor at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, in 2021. In 2022, he joined the University of Bern (UNIBE) as an Assistant Professor with Tenure Track in Organic Chemistry.
Among many other honors, he received the 2019 Leopold Ružička prize.
Dmitry Katayev’s research is focused on the development of innovative, robust, and catalytic strategies mediated by light, electricity, and mechanical energy, to streamline functional group incorporation into organic molecules in chemo-, regio-, and stereoselective as well as in atom-economic fashion.
Selected Publications
- Jacob J. A. Garwood, Andrew D. Chen, David A. Nagib, Radical Polarity, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2024, 146, 41, 28034–28059. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c06774
- Anthony J. Fernandes, Vasiliki Valsamidou, Dmitry Katayev, Overcoming Challenges in O-Nitration: Selective Alcohol Nitration Deploying N,6-Dinitrosaccharin and Lewis Acid Catalysis, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202411073
- Subrata Patra, Dmitry Katayev, Facile Access to Terminal Nitroalkanes via Anti-Markovnikov Hydronitration and Hydronitroalkylation of Alkenes Using Photoredox Catalysis, Chem. Eur. J. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202403654
- Anthony J. Fernandes, Rahul Giri, Kendall N. Houk, Dmitry Katayev, Review and Theoretical Analysis of Fluorinated Radicals in Direct CAr−H Functionalization of (Hetero)arenes, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202318377
- Roxan Calvo, Kun Zhang, Alessandro Passera, Dmitry Katayev, Facile access to nitroarenes and nitroheteroarenes using N-nitrosaccharin, Nature Communications 2019. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11419-y
- Dmitry Katayev, Masafumi Nakanishi, Thomas Bürgi, E. Peter Kündig, Asymmetric C(sp3)-H/C(Ar) coupling reactions. Highly enantio-enriched indolines via regiodivergent reaction of a racemic mixture, Chem. Sci. 2012, 3, 1422-1425. https://doi.org/10.1039/C2SC20111A
- Masafumi Nakanishi, Dmitry Katayev, Céline Besnard, E. Peter Kündig, Fused Indolines by Palladium-Catalyzed Asymmetric C-C Coupling Involving an Unactivated Methylene Group, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2011. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201102639
Also of Interest
The Swiss Chemical Society (SCS) awards the F. Hoffmann-La Roche team involved in the commercial manufacturing process of Divarasib, an KRAS G12C inhibitor for cancer treatment
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