Professor Benjamin List, director at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim an der Ruhr, has been appointed head of the SYNLETT editorial board, effective immediately. Professor List takes over the position of editor-in-chief from Professor Peter Vollhardt of UC Berkeley, who will continue his work for the English-language journal for synthetic chemistry as Editor for Accounts and Synpacts.
Thieme has been publishing the international journal SYNLETT since 1989. During Professor Peter Vollhardt’s 25 years as editor-in-chief, SYNLETT has evolved into a worldwide leading journal for synthetic organic chemistry. Professor Benjamin List, formerly a regional editor for SYNLETT, plans to build on this success.
The synthetic chemistry journal has been an important factor in Professor List’s academic life since undergraduate days. He published one of his earliest articles in SYNLETT and was awarded the Synthesis-Synlett Journal Prize, now known as Thieme Chemistry Journal Award.
Professor List has a PhD in chemistry and discovered the proline-catalyzed intermolecular aldol reaction in 2000. At the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim an der Ruhr he develops new concepts in organocatalysis, including aminocatalysis and enamine catalysis. In 2005, his group was the first to identify the concept of asymmetric counteranion-directed catalysis (ACDC) as a new principle for asymmetric synthesis. This method has become a common approach to asymmetric synthesis and is being used in organocatalysis, transition metal catalysis, and Lewis acid catalysis.
Benjamin List won an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award 2014 of the American Chemical Society as well as numerous other awards, including the Mukaiyama Award of the Japanese Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, the renowned Otto-Bayer-Preis, and the Lieseberg-Preis of the University of Heidelberg. Professor List is also one of the most often cited scientists.
