Organics Webinar | Topics in Organic Synthetic Chemistry — A webinar celebrating our newly increased journal Impact Factor (IF: 1.6)
the chairs
Organics is an MDPI journal that has been published quarterly since late 2020 and is now entering its sixth year.
Organics was indexed in Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)—Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics) in 2023 and Scopus (Elsevier) in 2024, both starting with Volume 1 (Issue 1).
The journal received its first Impact Factor of 1.4 and a CiteScore (2023) of 2.5. This year, the Impact Factor of Organics increased to 1.6 (and is further increasing) and the CiteScore is now 2.8. To celebrate this, we are holding a second webinar in which four colleagues will present their recent work.
We are expecting many more contributions. More information can be found at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/organics/stats. We look forward to receiving your next contribution, be it as a review, full research article, or communication, in the near future.
Date: 12 November 2025
Time: 5:00 pm CET | 11:00 am EST
Webinar ID: 870 5919 5190
Webinar Secretariat: journal.webinar@mdpi.com
Meet the Event Chairs
Meet Our Speakers
Prof. Dr. Ruilong Sheng
Centro de Química da Madeira (Madeira Chemistry Research Centre), Universidade da Madeira (University of Madeira), 9000-390 Funchal, Madeira Islands, Portugal;
Ruilong Sheng received his B.Sc. degree in Biochemistry (2002), and obtained his PhD degree in Organic Chemistry (2008) from Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China. He conducted his postdoctoral research in organic supramolecular chemistry, (Bio-)macromolecular chemistry, and Biomaterials at Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, CAS, China, then he worked there as an associate research professor of organic chemistry. From 2015 to 2017, he was invited to work at Université de Montréal and McGill University, Canada, working on natural product chemistry and nanobiomaterials as an invited scientist/professor. In 2017, he joined Centro de Química da Madeira (CQM) at Universidade da Madeira, Portugal as a Senior researcher (R4, Research Professor) and group leader. His current research mainly focusing on 1. Natural product-based supramolecular/nano systems for gene/drug/vaccine delivery; 2. Macromolecular/polymer chemistry and physics of functional nanobiomaterials; 3. Molecular optical (bio)chemical sensors and bioimaging; 4. Chemical modification of bioactive small organic molecules/biomacromolecules. He has around 110 research publications (h-index=35, citation: ~4100, google scholar) and serves as an active peer-reviewer in many international journals.
Prof. Dr. Scott Handy
Department of Chemistry, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN 37132, USA;
Prof. Dr. Scott Handy was born in the USA and has moved around to most every region of the country. He received his BS in Chemistry from the University of Iowa in 1991 and participated in research on non-natural nucleotides under Dr. Vasa Nair. He then completed his Ph.D in Chemistry at Indiana University in 1996 under the direction of Dr. Paul Grieco. This work was focused on the use of highly concentrated solutions of lithium salts in organic solvents for the catalysis of organic transformations. After an NIH post-doctoral fellowship under the direction of Dr. Paul Wender at Stanford University, Scott began his independent academic career in 1999 at Binghamton University. In 2005 he moved to Middle Tennessee State University where he has explored the chemistry of aurones, the synthesis of Lamellarin natural products, and the use of both room temperature ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents in organic synthesis. His Current work is focused on rapid and efficient synthesis and direct screening of arrays of potential fluorophores.
Prof. Dr. Kenneth Laali
Department of Chemistry, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL 32224, USA;
Kenneth K. Laali (BSc, PhD, FRSC) is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at University of North Florida and previously served as the Founding Chair of Chemistry. He completed his PhD in the UK at University of Manchester in 1977 and after postdoctoral stints at King’s College London, University of Strasbourg, University of Amsterdam, and at ETH-Zurich, he moved to University of Southern California to work with Prof. George Olah. He began his independent academic career at Kent State University (Ohio, USA) in 1985, where he went through the ranks and became full Professor in 1996. In 2009, he moved to UNF as Chair/Professor to lead a new chemistry department. He has authored and coauthored over 300 peer-reviewed publications as well as reviews, books, monographs, and patents. Research in the Laali laboratory has focused on multifaceted projects that combine synthetic, structural/mechanistic, and theoretical approaches. Prof. Laali’s research contributions in generation and NMR studies of carbocations, onium ions, and in organofluorine and superacid chemistry are internationally recognized. In the past decade, he has directed much of his attention to synthetic method development and catalysis in ionic liquids, and more recently to drug discovery projects.
Prof. Dr. Jernej Iskra
Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, University of Ljubljana, Večna pot 113, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia;
Jernej Iskra received his B.Sc. in Chemistry in 1993 and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in 1998 from the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology at the University of Ljubljana. He began his research career at the Jožef Stefan Institute in the Laboratory of Organic and Bioorganic Chemistry. From 2000 to 2002, he carried out his postdoctoral training as a Marie Curie Individual Fellow at the laboratory Biocis - Molecules Fluorees (CNRS / Université Paris-Sud, where he focused on clean oxidation processes in fluorous media.
After returning to the Jožef Stefan Institute, he continued his work as a Senior Research Associate and he has also held part-time appointments at the University of Maribor and the Centre of Excellence for Integrated Approaches in Chemistry and Biology of Proteins. In 2016 he joined the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology at the University of Ljubljana as a Professor of Organic Chemistry. He was promoted to Full Professor in 2022.
His research is centered on the design of molecules and methods for the functionalization of compounds derived from lignocellulosic biomass and its direct conversion into value-added products. His contributions include the development of green oxidative methods – such as halogenation, oxidation, fluorination, and oxidative cleavage – along with the conversion of lignin into vanillin and the preparation of functional materials from lignocellulosic biomass, including nanolignin, lignin quantum dots, and cellulose hydrogels.
He is the author of 82 scientific publications, several patents, and book chapters, publications has h-index of 29 and approximately 2,800 citations. In 2014, he co-founded the startup RGA (Research Genetics and Agrochemistry).
Sponsors and Partners
Organizer
The webinar was hosted via Zoom and required registration to attend. The full recording can be found below. To learn about future webinars, you can sign up to our newsletter by clicking “Subscribe”.