Laia Vicens receives the Research Lilly Award for PhD Students

Laia Vicens, PhD student in our group under the supervision of Dr. Miquel Costas, was awarded with a Research Lilly Award given by the international pharmaceutical company Lilly and the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (RSEQ). These awards recognize the research excellence of PhD student in organic, analytical and pharmaceutical chemistry and they intend to strengthen the interaction between industry and academia.

Laia was one of the winners of this 20th edition, together with Javier Corpas (Autonomous University of Madrid) and Craig Day (Institut d'Investigació Química de Catalunya, Tarragona). The three theses deal with synthetic methodology, an area of chemistry dedicated to the development of tools to transform chemical bonds, fundamental in research fields such as drug design. Specifically, Laia's research is based on the development of iron and manganese coordination compounds that act as catalysts in oxidation reactions to synthesize chiral products useful in organic synthesis.

As one of the winners, Laia will receive an economic prize of 2000€ and will be presenting an invited lecture in the XXXVIII Biennial Meeting of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry in Granada (June 27th-30th) and in a Scientific Symposium in the Lilly company in Madrid (October 21th). Congratulations Laia!