Welcome to the Vassilikogiannakis Group's website.
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As you will see, as you browse through our site, our lively and active team is based here at the University of Crete (UOC) in the new purpose-built Department of Chemistry on UOC's Vasilika Vouton campus (Heraklion, Crete, Greece). We have exceptionally well-equipped laboratories in which we carry out our research which is directed towards innovations in organic synthesis and the development of new methodologies.
The latest emerging paradigm for organic synthesis marks a definite shifting in the goals; today, it is no longer what you make, but how you make it that is most important. Synthetic Chemistry proved it could make the huge and complex molecular architectures found in Nature, and elsewhere, in the decades preceding the new millennium; what now stretches the minds of its practitioners are concepts like efficiency (how rapid is the increase in molecular complexity, sometimes called step-economy1), atom-economy2 (do we really need a high molecular weight oxidant to add one simple oxygen atom to our substrate?) and the attainment of more environmentally benign procedures and practices (chemistry's green revolution). These ideas have been brought together in the recently delineated concept of ideal synthesis.3 In our work, we seek always to synthesise molecules in a highly effective and green manner, thereby, fulfilling as many of the ideal synthesis principles as possible. For more specific details on how we achieve these goals, take a look at our research page where we will introduce you to the wonders of our cascade reaction sequences and the greenest oxidant of all - singlet oxygen.
[1] P. A. Wender
and B. L. Miller, Nature, 2009, 460, 197.
[2] B. M. Trost, Science, 1991, 254, 1471.
[3] (a) I. S. Young
and P. S. Baran, Nat. Chem., 2009, 1, 193; (b) T. Gaich and P. S. Baran, J. Org. Chem., 2010, 75, 4657; (c) T. Newhouse, P. S. Baran
and R. W. Hoffmann, Chem. Soc. Rev.,
2009, 38, 3010.
