Synthetic Methodology and New Building blocks

The Synthetic Methodology group, created at IQAC-CSIC in 2018, aims to developing state-of-the-art synthetic tools to reinforce and complement IQAC's ability to rapidly address societal challenges. The group is led by Dr. Aexandr Shafir, who after completing his doctorate and post-doctorate stages in the USA (Berkeley, MIT), developed his research career in Spain, first at the UAB (Barcelona), and then as Group Leader at ICIQ (Tarragona), prior to joining CSIC. The group aims to develop new classes of reactions and reagents to enable the formation of C-C and C-heteroatom bonds. Currently, one of our main goals consists of the selective C-H functionalization of haloarenes to access new bifunctional aromatic halarenes building blocks. These approches including new types of metal-free group transfer, as well as metal-catalyzed directed coupling reactions. We are aided in our research by tools ranging from physical (multinuclear NMR, X-Ray) to computational (DFT) techniques.