Contributors to the Organic Chemistry Frontiers Emerging Investigator Series 2024

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Abstract

The Organic Chemistry Frontiers Emerging Investigator Series highlights the best research being conducted by scientists in the early stages of their independent careers. This editorial features the emerging investigators who contributed to this series in 2024. Each contributor was recommended for carrying out work with the potential to influence future directions in organic chemistry. Congratulations to all the researchers; we hope you enjoy reading their work.

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Li-Jun Xiao is currently a tenure track professor at the State Key Laboratory and Institute of Elemento-Organic Chemistry, Nankai University. He earned his BSc degree from China Pharmaceutical University in 2012 and his PhD from Nankai University in 2017, under the supervision of Prof. Qi-Lin Zhou. From 2018 to 2021, he served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute with Prof. Jin-Quan Yu. His research focuses on developing new synthetic methodologies through the study of the formation, transformation, and selectivity control of metallacycles generated from alkenes, carbonyls, and transition metals.

EMI article: https://doi.org/10.1039/D4QO00737A

Website: https://chemen.nankai.edu.cn/2021/0629/c24617a553730/page.htm

Xiaoyu Yang is an associate professor at ShanghaiTech University. He obtained his BSc in chemistry from Nanjing University in 2007. He then moved to the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC) and obtained his PhD under the supervision of Professor Biao Yu in 2012. After that, he spent three years as a postdoctoral researcher with Professor Dean Toste at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2016, he began his independent research at ShanghaiTech University. His current research interests include the development of new methodologies with asymmetric organocatalysis and carbohydrate chemistry.

EMI article: https://doi.org/10.1039/D4QO02188F

Website: https://spst.shanghaitech.edu.cn/2018/0301/c2349a51311/page.htm

Yiming Wang was born in Shanghai, China, and grew up in Colorado, USA. He graduated with an A.B./A.M. degree in chemistry & physics and mathematics from Harvard University in 2008 after conducting research in the group of Professor Andrew Myers. After obtaining his Ph.D. under the supervision of Professor Dean Toste at the University of California, Berkeley in 2013, he conducted postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Professor Stephen Buchwald at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a National Institutes of Health NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow. He joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh in 2017 and was promoted to associate professor in 2024.

EMI article: https://doi.org/10.1039/D4QO02049A

Website: https://www.wanglab.chem.pitt.edu/

Pankaj Chauhan obtained his PhD from Guru Nanak Dev University, India, in 2012. In April 2013, he joined the research group of Professor Dieter Enders as a postdoctoral researcher at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. From April 2014 to September 2017, he served as a sub-group leader in the same group. In October 2017, he began his independent academic and research career as an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Jammu, where he currently holds the position of associate professor. His research interests lie in the areas of asymmetric synthesis, organocatalysis, photocatalysis/direct photoactivation, and electroorganic synthesis.

EMI article: https://doi.org/10.1039/D4QO02097A

Website: https://www.pankajchauhanresearch.com

Xi Lu is an associate professor in the School of Chemistry and Materials Science at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). He graduated from Nanjing University with a bachelor's degree in 2011. In 2016, he obtained his PhD from USTC under the supervision of Professor Youcheng Liu and Professor Qingxiang Guo. From 2016 to 2018, he conducted postdoctoral research at USTC, collaborating with Professor Yao Fu. From 2018 to 2023, he served as an associate researcher in the Department of Applied Chemistry at USTC. Since April 2023, he has been an associate professor in the School of Chemistry and Materials Science at USTC. His primary research focuses on the coupling chemistry mediated by alkyl metal intermediates.

EMI article: https://doi.org/10.1039/D4QO01585A; https://doi.org/10.1039/D4QO00486H

Website: https://www.x-mol.com/groups/luxi_ustc

Yifeng Chen earned his bachelor's degree from Soochow University in 2007. He completed his PhD in 2012 at the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry under the supervision of Professor Yuanhong Liu. He then pursued postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with Professor Stephen Buchwald and at Yale University with Professor Timothy Newhouse. In 2017, he was appointed as full professor at the School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering at East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST), where he established his independent research program. His current research focuses on asymmetric catalysis, homogeneous carbonylation, and molecular-skeleton editing.

EMI article: https://doi.org/10.1039/D4QO01474J

Website: https://www.x-mol.com/groups/YifengChen?lang=en

Xiaoming Wang received his B.S. in 2009 from Zhejiang University. In 2014, he obtained his Ph.D. from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Kuiling Ding. In the following years, he did his post-doctoral research with Prof. Frank Glorius at Münster University (Germany) and Prof. Kyoko Nozaki at University of Tokyo (Japan), respectively. Since 2019, he joined the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry as a professor. His current research interests focus mainly on the development of novel synthetic strategies via bi- and multi-nuclear metallic catalysis.

EMI article: https://doi.org/10.1039/D4QO01368A

Website: https://wangxgroup.sioc.ac.cn/

Hang Shi was born and raised in Shenyang, China. He earned his bachelor's degree with honors in Chemical Engineering and Technology from Hunan University in 2008, under the guidance of Prof. Shuangfeng Yin. He then pursued his PhD at Peking University under the mentorship of Prof. Zhen Yang, focusing on the synthesis of natural products. In 2013, he joined Prof. Tobias Ritter's lab at Harvard University as a postdoctoral fellow, where he developed novel methods for fluorination and ¹⁸F-labeling in collaboration with Prof. Neil Vasdev and Prof. Steven H. Liang. In 2015, he moved to the Scripps Research Institute to work with Prof. Jin-Quan Yu as a research associate, primarily focusing on the development of regioselective and stereoselective remote C–H bond activation strategies. He began his independent research career at Westlake University in 2018. In 2023, he was promoted to an associate professor.

EMI article: https://doi.org/10.1039/D3QO02140H

Website: https://hangshi.lab.westlake.edu.cn

Chao Li is an associate investigator at the National Institute of Biological Sciences (NIBS), Beijing. His research investigates potential therapeutic agents through the development of innovative chemical transformations and synthetic strategies for natural and synthetic small molecules with significant biological relevance. He is a recipient of the Wuxi AppTec Life Science Award (2022) and Chinese Chemical Society Young Chemist Award (2021).

EMI article: https://doi.org/10.1039/D3QO02141F

Website: https://www.lichaolab.com

Weiming Yuan received his bachelor's degree at East China Normal University (ECNU) in 2009. He continued his graduate study at East China Normal University and obtained his PhD degree in 2014 under the guidance of Prof. Shengming Ma. After two postdoctoral stints at Stockholm University with Prof. Kalman J. Szabo (2014–2016) and Technical University of Berlin with Prof. Martin Oestreich (2016–2018), he moved back to China and started his independent research at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) as a full professor. His research interests mainly focus on photoredox radical chemistry, transition metal catalysis, and asymmetric synthesis.

EMI article: https://doi.org/10.1039/D3QO01927F

Group website: https://www.x-mol.com/groups/yuanweiming

Gen-Qiang Chen received his bachelor's degree from Zhengzhou University in 2010 and obtained his PhD degree from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), under the supervision of Prof. Min Shi in 2015. After 2-year training as a presidential excellent postdoctoral fellow at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Prof. Xumu Zhang's group, he became a research assistant professor at SUSTech; he was then promoted to research associate professor in 2021 and research professor in 2025. His research interests include ligand design based on SNAr reaction, asymmetric catalysis and chiral drug synthesis. Based on the newly developed O-SPINOL framework, he has designed a series of chiral phosphine ligands such as O-SpiroPAP, O-SDP, O-SDPhite, O-SIPHOX, etc. O-SDP has been applied in the industrial production of key intermediates of Sacubitril, which is a blockbuster drug at Novartis.

EMI article: https://doi.org/10.1039/D3QO01665J

Website: https://www.sustech.edu.cn/zh/faculties/gen-qiangchen.html

Alastair Lennox attained his PhD from the University of Bristol (Prof. Guy Lloyd-Jones) and did postdoc studies in Rostock, Germany (Prof. Matthias Beller) as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (Prof. Shannon Stahl). In 2018, Alastair returned to the University of Bristol as a Royal Society University Research Fellow to start his independent research program. He was promoted to associate professor of chemistry in 2022. His group are interested in the development of novel synthetic organic methods with sustainability and mechanism as themes that strongly underpin their approach to this. Specific interests include the exploration of electrochemistry as a tool for performing selective redox transformations, and also in the development of fluorination reactions and fluorinated building blocks.

EMI article: https://doi.org/10.1039/D3QO01865B

Website: https://www.lennoxlab.com

Sarah Yunmi Lee received her B.S. in Chemistry from KAIST in 2009 and completed her Ph.D. in Chemistry at MIT in 2014 under the guidance of Prof. Gregory C. Fu. She then conducted postdoctoral research as an NIH fellow in the laboratory of Prof. John F. Hartwig at UC Berkeley. In 2018, she began her independent career in the Department of Chemistry at Yonsei University, where she served as both assistant and associate professor. In March 2025, she returned to her alma mater, KAIST, where she is currently an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry. Her group is engaged in designing, developing, and studying catalytic methods for stereoselective chemical synthesis.

EMI article: https://doi.org/10.1039/D3QO01707A

Website: https://cataleesis.kaist.ac.kr/

Zhi-Tao He was born and raised in Xiangyang, China. He obtained his B.S. in pharmacy from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2010, and then a Ph.D. degree from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Guo-Qiang Lin in 2015. From January 2016 to November 2019, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. John F. Hartwig at UC Berkeley. Since December 2019, he has been a professor at the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry. The research interests in his group focus on non-classical asymmetric η³-substitutions and modifications and discovery of biologically active molecules.

EMI article: https://doi.org/10.1039/D3QO01749D

Website: https://www.x-mol.com/groups/He-SIOC?lang=en

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