Professor Dr. Mario P. Wiesenfeldt

Sustainable Organic Catalysis

Research

We develop synthetic organic methods that address key synthetic challenges in medicinal chemistry. In particular, we focus on reactions that access nitrogen- and C(sp³)-rich motifs, i. e. structures that are prevalent in natural products and highly relevant to drug discovery, yet remain difficult to synthesize. To achieve this, the Wiesenfeldt Lab designs tailor-made organic reagents and catalysts that provide orthogonal selectivity to traditional metal-based systems while remaining resistant to catalyst poisoning.

A central theme of our work is enabling energetically challenging transformations through the generation of highly reactive open-shell species such as radical ions. Selectivity is introduced through the formation of photoexcitable electron donor–acceptor (EDA) complexes between the reagent or catalyst and the substrate to ensure that only the desired motif is activated.