New EuChemS President

Professor Floris Rutjes, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, has been elected president of EuChemS from 2021 to 2024. He succeeds Professor Pilar Goya Laza, Instituto de Química Médica (IQM), Madrid, Spain.

A major topic for Floris Rutjes during his presidency is to ensure EuChemS is even better known to its community, and ever more invaluable in today’s Europe.

Floris Rutjes studied chemistry at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and gained his Ph.D. there in organic chemistry in 1993. After postdoctoral research at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA, he became Assistant Professor at Amsterdam University in 1996. In 2007, he became Professor at Radboud University. Currently, he is the Director of the Institute for Molecules and Materials there.

His research interests focus on the synthesis of organic molecules. He is especially interested in developing new and sustainable (catalytic) synthesis methodologies, the design and synthesis of biologically active small molecules, new click-probes for bio-orthogonal conjugation, and continuous flow chemistry in microreactor systems. He holds 15 patents and is the founder of three companies.

Floris Rutjes has been President of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society (KNCV) from 2016 to 2019. Among many other awards, he was honored as the Most Entrepreneurial Scientist of the Netherlands in 2008, received the AstraZeneca Award for Research in Organic Chemistry in 2003, and the Gold Medal of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society (KNCV) in 2002.

Selected Publications by Floris Rutjes

• S. S. van Berkel, B. van der Lee, F. L. van Delft, R. Wagenvoord, H. C. Hemker, F. P. J. T. Rutjes, Fluorogenic Peptide-Based Substrates for Monitoring Thrombin Activity, ChemMedChem 2012, 7(04). https://doi.org/10.1002/cmdc.201100560
• Peter Spannring, Indrek Reile, Meike Emondts, Philipp P. M. Schleker, Niels K. J. Hermkens, Nick G. J. van der Zwaluw, Bram J. A. van Weerdenburg, Paul Tinnemans, Marco Tessari, Bernhard Blümich, Floris P. J. T. Rutjes, Martin C. Feiters, A New Ir-NHC Catalyst for Signal Amplification by Reversible Exchange in D₂O, Chem. Eur. J. 2016. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.201601211
• Anthonius H. J. Engwerda, Rick Maassen, Paul Tinnemans, Hugo Meekes, Floris P. J. T. Rutjes, Elias Vlieg, Attrition‐Enhanced Deracemization of the Antimalaria Drug Mefloquine, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201811289
• Giuseppe Belletti, Carola Tortora, Indradevi D. Mellema, Paul Tinnemans, Hugo Meekes, Floris P. J. T. Rutjes, Svetlana B. Tsogoeva, Elias Vlieg, Photoracemization‐Based Viedma Ripening of a BINOL Derivative, Chem. Europ. J. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.201904382

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