On May 27, 2016, with the invitation of Prof. Huang Yong, Prof. Nicolas Guimond visited our school and gave a wonderful lecture titled “Insights into Process Chemistry at Bayer”, teachers and students of our school actively participated in the academic discussions and exchanged ideas.

 

Prof. Nicolas Guimond introduced his lecture from two aspects. Firstly, he illustrated vividly that “making a new drug just like making a new car”, then he raised the concept of “Process Chemistry”. He thought that during the whole process, temperature profile, tedious purification, concentration, filtration times, safety, pressure reactions, costs and yields should be considered totally, which had a significant guidance for our later experiments. The second section was about Aryl Cyanation. He pointed out most common strategies employed additives, what’s worse, some solvents were toxic and unfriendly for environment. Hence, he presented a new System development, which Palladium could be used as catalyst, as well as Nickel.

 

Furthermore, Prof. Nicolas Guimond broadcasted two videos during the period  of his report. Everyone enjoyed the entire experimental process from the visual images. （Written by Qian Wang）

Nicolas Guimond was born in Québec city, Canada in 1985. He obtained his BSc in 2008 from Laval University (Québec, Canada). He then moved to the University of Ottawa (Ottawa, Canada) to undertake graduate studies under the supervision of Prof. Keith Fagnou, where he worked on Rh(III)-catalyzed C-H functionalization reactions until 2010. After the passing of Keith Fagnou in 2009, Nicolas worked on tethering organocatalysis reactions under the supervision of Prof. André Beauchemin. In 2012, he obtained his PhD and moved to Germany for postdoctoral studies in the group of Prof. Dirk Trauner in Munich. He thereby accomplished the biomimetic total synthesis of Betanidin. He was then hired by Bayer Pharma AG, and since 2014, is the head of the reaction screening laboratory in the Chemical Development department in Wuppertal, Germany. Besides chemistry, Nicolas has been playing badminton for more than 15 years and is a big fan of Lin Dan!