Otto Hahn Medal for a Scientist of the Kohlenforschung
Max Planck Society honours Dr. Julius Hillenbrand
The Max Planck Society has decorated Dr. Julius Hillenbrand, former PhD of Prof. Dr. Alois Fürstner, with the Otto Hahn Medal.
The Nobel Laureate Otto Emil Hahn, who was born in Frankfurt in 1879 and died in Göttingen in 1968, was an exceptional scientist and pioneer in the field of radiochemistry. In his honor, the Max Planck Society annually awards up to 30 young researchers with the Otto-Hahn-Medal. The prize is endowed with 7500 Euros. Among this year's laureates is a former scientist of the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung.
Dr. Julius Hillenbrand, who currently works as group leader at the Bayer AG in Wuppertal, did his PhD in the Department of Organometallic Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Alois Fürstner. He received the Otto Hahn Medal for the development of a new catalyst class for alkyne metathesis that combines high activity with excellent selectivity. The award has now been officially presented by Prof. Dr. Klaus Blaum, Vice-President of the Max Planck Society, during the annual meeting of the MPG in Berlin.
Prof. Dr. Martin Stratmann, President of the Max-Planck-Society, wrote in a letter to the awardees: "I hope that in honoring your work you will find courage and encouragement to go your very own way. You have proven with bravura that you have all the prerequisites for it."
"I am fascinated by how catalysts can enable a chemical transformation that would otherwise be impossible," says Hillenbrand himself about his motivation. He is particularly interested in the discovery and development of novel catalysts for chemical reactions and their application to the production of drug substances.
In 2020 Julius Hillenbrand was awarded the Thiel Award by the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung for his publication ""Canopy Catalysts" for Alkyne Methathesis: Molybdenum Alkylidyne Complexes with a Tripodal Ligand Framework", which appeared in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
