אילן מרק

We are concerned with the design and development of new and efficient stereo- and enantioselective strategies for the synthesis of important complex molecular structures. We are particularly interested in developing carbon-carbon bond forming processes, which efficiently create multiple stereocenters in a single-pot operation. Deep understanding of reaction mechanisms gives insight into the origins of chemo- and stereoselectivity, and governs optimization towards the most efficient and general protocols for our methodologies. Our vision is that we should provide an answer to challenging synthetic problems but it has to be coupled with unique efficiency and elegance.

Prof. Marek has received several awards for his research, including the First French Chemical Society-Acros Price for young Organic Chemist (under 40 years old in 1997); the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Visiting Professor Award (1997); the Lawrence G. Horowitz Career Development Chair (1998); the Yigal Alon Fellowship (1998); Evelyn and Salman Grand Academic Lectureship-USA (1998); the Yosefa and Leonid Allschwang award, administrated by the Israel Science Foundation (2000); the Michael Bruno Memorial Award 2002, administrated by the Rothschild Foundation (2002); the Prize for Excellent Young Chemist, The Israel Chemical Society (2004); the Merck Sharpe and Dohm Lecturer (2005); the Bessel Award of the Humboldt Foundation, Germany (2007), the Taub Award for academic excellence (2009), The German-Technion Award for Academic Excellence and Scientific Collaborations, (2010), the Royal Society Chemistry organometallic Award from the RSC (2011), the Taiwan National Science Council Visiting Scholar (2011), the Janssen Pharmaceutica Prize for Creativity in Organic Synthesis (2012), the Israel Chemical Society Award for Excellence (2012), the Moore Distinguished Scholar Appointment at the California Institute of Technology (2013), the Eli Lilly lecturer at Urbana Champaign, Il, USA (2014), the SFB-guest Professor Wilhelms-University Munster, Germany (2015), the Joseph and Patricia Vanderslice Lecturer, Boston College (2015), the 17th International Organic Chemistry Foundation Yoshida Lectureship, Japan (2015), the Weizmann Prize for Exact Sciences (2015) and the YannaiAward for excellence in teaching (2016).

1. Forming All-Carbon Quaternary Stereogenic Centres in Acyclic Systems from Alkynes Yury Minko, Morgane Pasco, Luckas Lercher, Mark Botoshansky and Ilan Marek
   Nature, (2012), 490, 522-526
2. Merging Allylic C-H Activation and Selective C-C Bond Activation
   Ahmad Masarwa, Dorian Didier, Tamar Zabrodsky, Marvin Schinkel, Lutz Ackermann and Ilan Marek
   Nature (2014) 505, 199-203
3. Cyclopropene Derivatives  as a New Entry to Enantioenriched Cyclopropanol and n-Butenal Possessing Quaternary Carbon Stereocenters
   Marwan Simaan, Pierre-Olivier Delaye, Min Shi and Ilan Marek
   Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (2015), 54, 12345-12348
4. Asymmetric Copper-Catalyzed Carbozincation of Cyclopropenes en route to the Formation of Diastereo- and Enantiomerically Enriched Polysubstituted Cyclopropanes
   Daniel S. Müller and Ilan Marek
   J. Am. Chem. Soc. (2015), 137, 15414-15417
5. Probing the Limits of NMR and VCD Spectroscopies in the Stereochemical Assignment of Chiral 2H6-Neopentane
   Ahmad Masarwa, Dennis Gerbig, Liron Oskar, Aharon Loewenstein, Hans Peter Reisenauer, PhilipeLesot, Peter R. Schreiner andIlan Marek
   Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (2015) 54, 13106-13109
6. Stereodefined Acyclic Trisubstituted Silyl Enol Ethers Towards The Asymmetric Formation of Aldol Products Possessing Quaternary Carbon Stereocenters
   Zackaria Nairoukh and Ilan Marek
   Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (2015), 54, 14933-14937.
7. Remote Functionalization through Alkene Isomerization Alexandre Vasseur, Jeffrey Bruffaerts andIlan Marek
   Nature Chem. (2016) 8, 209-219
8. Stereoselective Formation of Trisubstituted Ketone Enolates Elvira Haimov, Zackaria Nairoukh, Alexandre Shterenberg, Tiran Herkowitch, Timothy F. Jamison, Ilan Marek
   Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (2016), 55, 5517-5520.
9. Brook Rearrangement as a Trigger for Ring-Openingstrained Carbocycles Fa-Guang Zhang, Guillaume Eppe and Ilan Marek
   Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (2016), 52, 714-718.
10. Preparation and Reactivity of Acyclic Chiral Allylzinc Species via a Zn-Brook Rearrangement
    Markus Leibelling, Khriesto A. Shurrush, Veronika Werner, Lionel Perrin, Ilan Marek
    Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (2016), 55, 6057-6061.

Full List of Publications