„New Perspectives in Lithium Halocarbenoids Mediated Homologations” ( Nauji pasiekimai ličio halokarbenoidų chemijoje)

Vittorio Pace was born in 1981 in Italy and obtained a MSc (Laurea) cum laude in Pharmacy in 2005 from the University of Perugia under the supervision of Prof. M. Curini and Dr. O. Rosati. Later on, he started doctoral studies at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) under the guidance of Prof. J. V. Sinisterra and Prof. A. R. Alcántara in the frame of the Universitary Professorial Training Fellowship Program (FPU) of the Spanish Ministry of Education which allowed him to realize three stays at the Universities of Trieste (Italy, Prof. Gardossi), Gent (Belgium, Prof. De Kimpe) and Graz (Austria, Prof. Kroutil). His PhD defended in July 2010 was awarded with the Prize to the best PhD theses (Premio Extraordinario de Doctorado) at the Faculty of Chemical Sciences of UCM. During the doctoral studies he also received a postgraduate Master (Diploma de Estudios Avanzados) in Chemistry (2007, UCM) and in Drug Design and Development (2009, University of Pavia, Italy).

In September 2010 he commenced postdoctoral training with Prof. Holzer at the University of Vienna as a Mach fellow till August 2011 working on organometallic chemistry. Then, he joined Prof. D. J. Procter’s group at Manchester (UK) for a 2-years project funded by the Leverhulme-Trust foundation to study transition-metal catalyzed asymmetric processes. In October 2013 he moved to Stockholm University (Sweden) being awarded a special Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship to join Prof. B. Olofsson’s group where he investigated on amide chemistry.

In August 2014 he came back to Vienna as a Group Leader in Synthetic Chemistry in the recently refurbished Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry leaded by Prof. T. Langer. Currently, his group is formed by one postdoctoral associate, six PhD students (including two visitings), two postgraduate students and 5 undergraduates. He was Visiting Professor at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Perugia (Italy) in July 2015.

His main research activity deals with the development of synthetic tactics (and mechanistic understandings) based on the use of organolithiums methods (mainly halocarbenoids) with vistas to their application in synthetic medicinal chemistry. He is also interested in the use of transition-metal catalyzed (asymmetric) processes and in alternative solvents in organic synthesis.

He published > 50 articles as research papers, reviews, encyclopedia monographs and acted as Guest Editor for Curr. Org. Chem. (06/2013).

In November 2014 he received the Habilitation for Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry by the Italian Ministry of Education.

Since September 2015 he has been nominated member of Management Committee for Austria for the COST Action CM1407 “Challenging organic syntheses inspired by nature – from natural products chemistry to drug discovery”.

In 2015 he has been the recipient of the International Prize Vincenzo Caglioti by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (in the course of a ceremony honored by the presence of the President of the Italian Republic), the Ciamician Medal awarded by the Organic Division of the Italian Chemical Society and the Young Investigator Award of the Faculty of Life Sciences of the University of Vienna.