Chemist Ryan Gilmour receives ’ERC Proof of Concept Grant’

European Research Council honours transfer project / Innovative tool set for the production of fluorinated molecules. Funding for research transfer: organic chemist Prof. Ryan Gilmour from the University of Münster has been awarded a prestigious Proof of Concept Grant, worth 150,000 euros, from the European Research Council (ERC). The aim of the grant is to support researchers, who have already received funding from the ERC for their pioneering work, to make the results of their work commercially viable. Ryan Gilmour has used the previous funding to develop a general strategy to create fluorinated building blocks that are widely used in the production of medicines and agrochemicals, for example. -Although fluorinated drugs are extremely common, nature has not evolved a fluorine biochemistry to any appreciable degree and so it is essential that organic chemists develop efficient methods to prepare fluorinated small molecules to meet our societal needs-, says Ryan Gilmour. Using simple organic catalysts; those that do not contain metals, Ryan Gilmour and his team have been able to create the structural motifs. More importantly, he has been able to design new materials that are unexplored.