The increasing awareness of the harmful impact of chemical manufacturing processes has pressured companies to become more proactive in the development of new sustainable technologies. The implementation of greener solvents, mild and eco-friendly reaction conditions and synthetic approaches, and enabling technologies into new efficient protocols for the production of target molecules represents nowadays one of the main challenges of industrial research. The main goal of this project is therefore the replacement of traditional organic solvents in synthetic processes with biodegradable, recyclable, safe and low-cost sustainable alternatives. In particular, the research topic is focused on the design of telescoped chemo- and stereoselective synthetic approaches under bench-type conditions, potentially combined with enabling technologies, to upgrade of the traditional chemistry of short-lived and highly reactive species to the use of green, safe solvents and of alternative reaction media. The scientific goal of the project is to create novel and highly competitive synthetic methods towards a variety of new pharmacologically relevant molecular scaffolds with controlled chemoselectivity. Unprecedented synthetic sequences will be developed in a more sustainable perspective by using biomass-derived solvents and simple reaction conditions, potentially in combination with enabling green technologies.

The ideal PhD candidate should possess a proper background in organic chemistry and an early-stage experience in organic synthesis. The candidate should have experience on the use of the common purification techniques such as flash column chromatography, HPLC, preparative TLC, distillation, recrystallization and knowledge on the common characterization techniques of organic compounds including nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) and infrared spectroscopy (IR). The knowledge of English language is required.

The PhD candidate will join a research group composed by one full professor, two associate professors, one tenure-track researcher, one postdoc and three PhD students. The research activity of the PhD candidate will be carried out in a fully equipped organic chemistry laboratory, under the supervision of a research group with a solid experience in organic synthesis and a well-defined network of (inter)national scientific collaborations, with particular regards to the sustainability aspects involved in the development of novel synthetic methodologies.