Martín Fañanás-Mastral

Martín Fañanás Mastral graduated in Chemistry from the University of Oviedo in 2002. He performed his PhD studies at the same university under the supervision of Prof. José Barluenga and Prof. Fernando Aznar, working on the development of cascade reactions of Fischer carbene complexes and their application in organic synthesis. He received his PhD in 2007 and his doctoral thesis was awarded with the "Extraordinary Doctorate Award". He performed a predoctoral stay at the group of Prof. Steven Ley at the University of Cambridge (UK), where he worked in the total synthesis of the natural product Bengazole A.

In 2009 he joined the group of Prof. Ben L. Feringa at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) as postdoctoral researcher. There he worked on the development of enantioselective catalytic allylic substitution reactions, cross-coupling of organolithium reagents and catalytic oxidation processes.

In 2014 he moved to the Centro Singular de Investigación en Química Biológica y Materiales Moleculares (CiQUS), at the University of Santiago de Compostela, as Ramón y Cajal researcher. In 2021 he has been promoted to Associate Professor.

His research is based on the development of novel transition metal catalyzed reactions which allow to perform highly atom-efficient and sustainable transformations oriented towards enantioselective C-C bond formation, alkane functionalization and synthesis of biologically active phosphorous compounds.

Martín Fañanás Mastral has been awarded with the "Thieme Chemistry Journal Award" (2015), the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry "Young Researchers Award" (2016) and with the “Lilly Young Researcher Award” (2018). In 2019, he received an ERC-Consolidator Grant awarded by the European Research Council.