The group in Spring 2026. From left to right, back to front: Stefano, Annick, Helena, Felix, Alejandro, Josh, Carlo, Clément, Philipp, Thomas, Loic, Daphne, Najung, Laurine, Nina, Lucie, Jérôme, Yuji, Uttam, Valentas.
The Group in Spring 2026
The group in Spring 2026. From left to right, back to front: Stefano, Annick, Helena, Felix, Alejandro, Josh, Carlo, Clément, Philipp, Thomas, Loic, Daphne, Najung, Laurine, Nina, Lucie, Jérôme, Yuji, Uttam, Valentas.
LATEST NEWS
October 1: We welcome Alec Gagnebin as a new PhD student at LCSO. After completing his Master’s thesis at Strathclyde, we are delighted to welcome him back to the lab. We warmly welcome Alec and wish him every success in his PhD journey.
October 1: The work of Carlo Baldassari, Carolin Veras and Tin V. T. Nguyen on the synthesis of 3,3-diarylpropylamines from cyclopropanes using either copper- or photocatalysis is now accepted in Chemical Science. https://doi.org/10.1039/D6SC06246F
September 26: Jerome had the pleasure of presenting at the Enamine 35th Anniversary Conference this week in Riga. https://www.enamine-conferences.org/
September 15: Great to see the final part of the PhD work of Alexandre Schoepfer, together with Ruben Laplaza and the LCMD / Clémence Corminboeuf group, on feature selection for data-efficient reaction optimization (NaviCat ReaFS), now published in its final form in ACS Catalysis! https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.6c04292
September 8: Daphne Lucidarme successfully completed her candidacy exam and is now the newest senior member of the lab. Congratulations, Daphne!
September 4: We welcomed back former members of LCSO for our Alumni Night. It was a great evening of reconnecting with old friends, sharing memories, and hearing about the exciting paths our alumni have taken since leaving the lab. A big thank you to everyone who joined us and made the evening such a success!
September 1: Clara Jans joined us from the Lautens Lab at the University of Toronto for a visiting PhD stay. We are very happy to welcome Clara to LCSO and look forward to having her with us during her visit!
September 1: Lucie Orain and Felix Goebel successfully completed their candidacy exams and are now senior members of the lab. Congratulations to both!
September 27–28: The SCS Fall Meeting took place in Bern, with Clément Tanguy and Yuji Kamei presenting invited talks. LCSO was also well represented across the topics of organic chemistry, chemical biology, and catalysis. A special congratulations goes to Helena Solé-Avila, who won the Poster Prize in the Organic Chemistry section!
August 20: This year’s group outing took us to the delights of Fribourg! The day included a chocolate-making workshop at Cailler in Broc, a hike to Gruyères, and a visit to the Maison du Gruyère, where we enjoyed a delicious cheese tasting.
June 5–10: The 19th Belgian Organic Synthesis Symposium (BOSS XIX) took place in Leuven, with Najung Lee, Nina Aregger, Valentas Olikauskas, and Clément Tanguy attending this outstanding forum. Nina Aregger was awarded the Best Poster Prize, sponsored by Thieme. Congratulations, Nina!
July 10: Carlo Baldassari posted a preprint entitled Photocatalytic and Copper-Catalyzed 1,3-Aminoarylation of Aryl Cyclopropanes: Complementary Mechanistic Strategies for Synthesizing 3,3-Diarylpropylamines on ChemRxiv (DOI: 10.26434/chemrxiv.15005923/v1).
July 4: Carolin Veras successfully completed her apprenticeship at LCSO with First-in-Class Honors. We congratulate Carolin on this outstanding achievement and wish her all the very best for her future!
July 1: Stefano Nicolai and Daphne Lucidarme posted a preprint entitled Convergent Synthesis of Azabicyclo[4.1.1]octanes through the Formal Cycloaddition of Bicyclobutanes with 2-Azadienes on ChemRxiv (DOI: 10.26434/chemrxiv.15005502/v1).
June 14–19: Josh Wu participated in the 2026 Gordon Research Conference on Heterocyclic Compounds, bringing together researchers to discuss the latest developments in heterocyclic chemistry.
June 19: A preprint from Najung, Josh, Philipp, Duncan, Jozef, and Matt has been posted on ChemRxiv. The study reports BCB-Bx reagents, among the first electrophilic bicyclobutane synthons, enabling bridgehead functionalization through umpolung reactivity and reactions with nucleophiles such as thiols and Grignard reagents (DOI: https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv.15004944/v1).
June 10: The three-day NCCR Catalysis Annual Meeting 2026 concludes successfully. Nina presented her work on quantum dots, Valentas on single-atom catalysts (SACs), and Laurin on her master’s thesis project. In addition, poster presentations were given by Uttam, Helena, and Carlo.
June 9: The SNE Chemical Biology Retreat 2026 comes to an end in Tramelan. Lucie and Felix are grateful for the valuable exchanges with the chemical biology community in Switzerland and would like to thank the organisers.
June 5: Today marks the last day in the lab for Alejandro and Gustav. We thank them for the great times, their enthusiasm, and their valuable contributions to LCSO. We wish them all the best for the future.
June 4: During this year’s Peptide Therapeutics Forum 2026, organised by the Swiss Chemical Society, Lucie had the opportunity to present her work on the modification of proteins using hypervalent iodine reagents.
May 7: The Bürgenstock Conference of the Swiss Chemical Society concludes today. The conference was co-organised by Jérôme with the support of Josh.
April 25: We congratulate Christine on successfully defending her PhD thesis. As the 34th PhD student to obtain her degree at LCSO, she focused primarily on the synthesis of non-natural amino acid building blocks and introduced a new research direction to the lab with her work on site-selective modification of proteins.
April 24: Congratulations to Clément Tanguy on winning the Best Poster Prize at the French Industrial Chemistry Symposium 2026.
April 1: The work of Clement and Vladyslav with computation by Matt on the synthesis of housanes from cyclopropenes has been published at JACS (DOI: 10.1021/jacs.6c03013).
March 18: The work of Josh and Tobias with computation by Matt on the synthesis of trifluoromethylated building blocks has been published at Org. Lett. (DOI: 10.1021/acs.orglett.6c00410).
March 1: Laurine Palluaud and Loic Raboud have joined LCSO for their master thesis, and Alejandro Delgado Montiel as a visiting PhD student from ICIQ. Welcome!
February 24: Christine Marty has successfully passed her PhD exam. Congratulations!
February 5: Alexandre Schoepfer successfully defended his PhD thesis. He is the PhD student number 33 to obtain their degree at LCSO, and the first ever shared PhD student between LCSO and LCMD. Congratulations!
February 5: Dr. Xingyu Liu has been awarded the DMCCB PhD Prize of the Swiss Chemical Society for his thesis at LCSO. Congratulations!
January 30: The work of Clement and Emma on the formal total synthesis of strictamine has now been published at Helv. Chim. Acta (DOI: 10.1002/hlca.202500163).
January 22: A preprint of the work of Clement and Vladyslav with computation by Matt on the synthesis of housanes from cyclopropenes has been posted on ChemRxiv (DOI: 10.26434/chemrxiv.10001480/v1).
January 12: The work of Tin and Trinh in collaboration with AstraZeneca on chlorination via the photolysis of Willgerodt-type reagents has now been published in open access at JACS Au (DOI: 10.1021/jacsau.5c01226).
January 8: Good bye and good luck to Dr. Adriana Faraone, who has finished her postdoc in our group.
January 7: The work of Duncan and Alexandre on the palladium catalyzed carboetherificatio of cyclopropenes has now been published in open access at Chem. Sci. (DOI: 10.1039/D5SC09351A).
January 1: Welcome to Dr. Philipp Schoch for his postdoc!