Making impossible molecules

Visit https://thermofisher.com/bctl to register for your free Bringing Chemistry to Life T-shirt and https://www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast/ to access the extended video version of this episode and the  episode summary sheet, which contains links to recent publications and additional content recommendations for our guest. 

You can access the extended video version of this episode via our YouTube channel to hear, and see, more of the conversation!

For decades chemists have challenged themselves to reproduce in the lab incredibly complex molecules that can usually only be extracted from plants or other highly evolved (micro)organisms. These are often painfully complex efforts from researchers to design and execute multi-step chemical synthesis, where consideration must be given to intramolecular interactions from to multiple functional groups as well as many stability, configuration, and conformational issues. Yet this is how modern synthetic chemistry has evolved its toolbox of useful reactions and how skilled chemists exhibit creativity in addressing some of the most complex scientific problems.

Hans Renata left native Indonesia as a young child to study in Singapore and later emigrated to the US for his academic career, partly spent in the lab of a Nobel Prize recipient. Perseverance and the ability to adapt skills learned at an early age played that played a key role his becoming the chemist he is today: a chemist that make molecules everybody else struggles to imagine. Hans is known for his chemical creativity and his synthetic approaches look like nothing else out there. In this episode we discuss how combining traditional organic chemistry with the use of enzymes is at the foundation of his research and how this could change organic synthesis as we know it.

We read every email so please share your questions and feedback with us! 

About Your Host

Paolo Braiuca grew up in the North-East of Italy and holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from nearby esteemed University of Trieste, Italy.  He developed expertise in biocatalysis during his years of post-doctoral research in Italy and the UK, where he co-founded a startup company. With this new venture, Paolo’s career shifted from R&D to business development, taking on roles in commercial, product management, and marketing. He has worked in the specialty chemicals, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical markets in Germany and the UK, where he presently resides.

He is currently the Director of Global Market Development in the Laboratory Chemicals Division  at Thermo Fisher Scientific™ which put him in the host chair of the Bringing Chemistry to Life podcast. A busy father of four, in what little free time he has, you’ll find him inventing electronic devices with the help of his loyal 3D-printer and soldering iron. And if you ask him, he’ll call himself a “maker” at heart.