Symmetry Webinar | Advances in Catalytic Asymmetric Synthesis

Prof. Dr. Gerry Rassias

Department of Chemistry, University of Patras, Greece;
Gerry Rassias graduated with a First Class Chemistry degree (BSc Hons) in 1995 from the University of Liverpool where he also started his doctoral research under the supervision of Prof. Phillip C. B. Page on “New systems for catalytic asymmetric epoxidation” using iminium salt-organocatalysts. He concluded his doctorate work at Loughborough University in 1998 due to the appointment of Prof. Phil C. P. Page as Head of Organic Chemistry at the latter institution and stayed with Prof. Phil C. P. Page for his first post-doctoral appointment where he worked towards the total synthesis of lactacystin and novel chiral ligands for palladium-catalysed asymmetric transformations. After mandatory military service in Greece Gerry joined the group of Prof. K. C. Nicolaou at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, USA, as a postdoctoral fellow where he worked on the total synthesis of diazonamide A and analogues of epothilone B. In April 2003. Gerry joined GlaxoSmithKline’s Chemical Development at Stevenage, UK and for the next 10 years worked on several GSK drug development projects. Gerry was the lead chemist in the chemical development of trametinib for the treatment of melanoma and authored parts of the file that was approved by the FDA. In October 2012 Gerry joined the Chemistry Department of the University of Patras and his research interests span Synthetic Methodology, Green Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Asymmetric catalysis, and Process Development