Transition Metal Catalyzed Carbonylation Reactions

Xiao-Feng Wu was born in 1985, China. He studied chemistry in Zhejiang Sci-Tech University (China), where he got his bachelor’s degree in science (2007). In the same year, he went to Rennes 1 University (France) and worked with Prof C. Darcel on iron catalyzed reactions. After earned his master’s degree in 2009, he joined Matthias Beller’s group in Leibniz-Institute for Catalysis (Germany), where he completed his PhD thesis in January 2012. Then he started his independent research at ZSTU and LIKAT. He is the author of more than 50 peer reviewed publications. His research interests include carbonylation reactions, heterocycles synthesis, and the catalytic application of cheap metals. He also was a fellow of the Max-Buchner-Forschungsstiftung.

Matthias Beller, born 1962, studied chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, where he completed his PhD thesis in 1989 in the group of Prof. Tietze. Then, he spent one-year in the group of Prof. Sharpless at MIT, USA. From 1991 to 1995, Beller was an employee of Hoechst AG in Frankfurt. In 1996, he moved to the Technical University of Munich as Professor for Inorganic Chemistry. In 1998, he relocated to Rostock to head the Institute for Organic Catalysis (IfOK). Since 2006 Matthias Beller is director of the Leibniz-Institute for Catalysis. His scientific work has been published in around 550 publications and >90 patent applications have been filed in the last decade. Matthias Beller has received several awards including the Otto-Roelen Medal, the Leibniz-Price and the German Federal Cross of Merit. Most recently, he received the first “European price for Sustainable Chemistry” and the “Paul-Rylander Award” of the Organic Reaction Catalysis Society, US. Matthias Beller is a member of the Association for Technical Sciences of the Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities, and the German National Academia of Science.