Paul Chirik
Princeton University, NJ·Chemistry
Catalysts are substances that speed up chemical reactions without being used up. Many medicines are built with their help.
- Fields
Chemistry
- Topics
catalysis
earth-abundant metals
manganese
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Sep 2027
What they work on
- Discover robust iron and cobalt catalyst precursors in several oxidation states, using oxidatively-induced reductive elimination and arene displacement from metal sandwich compounds.
- Develop earth-abundant metal catalysts for asymmetric hydrogenation, reductive hydroformylation and hydroaminomethylation of alkenes, including substrates with heterocycles that poison precious-metal catalysts.
- Develop meta-selective C–H functionalization of arenes and selective functionalization of drug-like heterocycles, using iron, cobalt and manganese catalysts that distinguish C–H bonds by their electronic properties.
- Create methods to make 1,3,5-trisubstituted arenes and to functionalize sp3 C–H bonds in the presence of sp2 C–H bonds, using first-row metals supported by modular redox-active ligands.
More about the research
The best catalysts used in drug manufacturing, however, rely on precious metals, which are among the rarest elements on Earth, and that makes production less sustainable. This research looks for catalysts based instead on abundant, domestically available metals such as iron, cobalt, nickel and manganese. It also asks whether these metals can carry out reactions that precious metals cannot.
Why it matters
Swapping rare precious metals for iron, cobalt and similar abundant metals could make pharmaceutical manufacturing cheaper and more environmentally sustainable. New site-selective reactions could also let medicinal chemists make drug-like molecules that current methods cannot reach. This would widen the range of structures that can be explored in drug discovery.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Melanie Sanford
University of Michigan, MI·Chemistry
Determine the mechanisms of cyclometalation and oxidative functionalization in copper, nickel and iron pincer complexes, varying the bidentate directing group, supporting ligands and oxidant to see how each controls the pathway.
Matthew Whited
Carleton College, MN·Chemistry
Develop late-metal complexes with metal–silicon single and multiple bonds that transfer reactive nitrene and carbene groups (short-lived nitrogen and carbon fragments) onto organic substrates.
Michael Krische
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Chemistry
Develop ruthenium catalysts with chiral phosphine ligands that convert C–H bonds of aromatic N-heterocycles into allylated products, via hydroruthenation of dienes, allenes, or alkynes and dearomative C=N addition.
The school
Princeton University: 26 labs on PI Pages, $559M a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
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