Philipp Heretsch came to the Faculty of Natural Sciences in Hanover in January 2022 following his appointment to the professorship of Natural Product Synthesis and Convergent Technologies. With his excellent research projects, he has now been able to acquire significant EU research funding in March 2022 and, with the ERC Consolidator Grant, has the best opportunities to expand his research group.
Promising in the field of organic chemistry
Philipp Heretsch studied chemistry in Leipzig from 2001 to 2006, where he completed his doctorate in organic chemistry on the synthesis of teratogenic steroid alkaloids with Athanassios Giannis in 2009. With a fellowship from the Leopoldina, National Academy of Sciences, he spent time researching with Professor K.C. Nicolaou in San Diego and Houston. In 2015, he was appointed to a junior professorship for organic synthesis and catalysis at the Free University of Berlin. On 01.01.2022, he accepted the offer of a professorship at Leibniz Universität Hannover. His work has been awarded, among others, the ADUC Prize of the GDCh in 2018, the DECHEMA Young Scientist Prize for Natural Products Research 2020, and recently, the ORCHEM Prize for Young Scientists of the Liebig Association for Organic Chemistry of the GDCh.
Technology and innovation
Professor Heretsch supports research and teaching at the Institute of Organic Chemistry: the focus of his research group is on the synthesis and the resulting understanding of the biogenesis of complex natural substances with the help of technological innovations. The research is funded as part of the Heisenberg Programme of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation's Perspectives Programme "Plus 3" until 2026.
With his team, Mr Heretsch develops novel strategies for manipulating C-C bonds to apply them in the synthesis of complex natural products, especially terpenes and alkaloids. Insights from the assumed biosyntheses of these natural products help to analyse the natural reactivity of synthesis intermediates and thus develop novel cascades of rearrangements. The implementation of radical processes and their biological profile are of specific interest, in addition to the structural complexity of the target molecules. Another key topic in the working group is to develop und apply novel reactor designs for reaction control in continuous flow, in order to be able to selectively convert sensitive and short-lived chemical species in particular.
European research excellence: ERC Consolidator Grant
In March 2022, Philipp Heretsch was awarded a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for his project RadCrossSyn (Radical and Radical-Polar Crossover Logic in Terpenoid Synthesis). Only researchers whose projects have been rated as particularly outstanding by an international committee receive that kind of funding from the European Research Council. The grant of around two million euros will give Mr Heretsch the opportunity to establish his own independent research and build up a team over the next five years.
In the project, he and his team will develop novel methods and technologies for the synthesis of terpenes and investigate their medical potential. Dean Stefanie Heiden congratulated on this outstanding award: "We are very happy and also a little proud to have gained such an extremely qualified scientist in Philipp Heretsch, whose achievements are also recognised and appreciated both nationally and internationally".
Congratulations and welcome to the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Professor Heretsch!
