This is GOOD origin of life research. Based on experiment with feasible priors. From Joe, of course. Again.

I’m thrilled to share that I will start as a junior group leader at TU München in January, thanks to the support of VCI. I’m grateful to Joseph Moran, Ofial_Lab, and Herbert Mayr for the continuous support and Job Boekhoven for hosting me! rjmayerlab.com

Delighted about #MyFirstChemSci! The emergence of a protometabolism implies a small set of repeating mechanisms. In the case of phosphorylation, PEP is the only exception. Does nature break the rule? Joseph Moran Robert Mayer Chemical Science doi.org/10.1039/D3SC04…

Congrats Joris Zimmermann!

Are London dispersion forces affected by Vibrational Strong Coupling (VSC)? Yes, they are! We studied a molecular balance under VSC - for the 1st time directly by NMR. Check it out on ChemRxiv Joseph Moran Bianca P. Robert Mayer doi.org/10.26434/chemr…

Thanks Quentin, it has been absolutely awesome to spent the last years together with you in Joseph Moran. Already missing Strasbourg!

Finish of the year: A new class of mesoionic NHOs just accepted Angewandte Chemie. Big thanks to the group as well as the joint work with Ofial_Lab and Robert Mayer. Happy New Year! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/an…

Pyridinium-Derived Mesoionic N-Heterocyclic Olefins (py-mNHOs) (Max M. Hansmann and co-workers) Hansmann Lab Robert Mayer Ofial_Lab #openaccess thanks to #projektDEAL onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/an…

Our paper on NMR-compatible cavities for VSC is out in Angewandte Chemie! Many thanks to Bianca P. who made this somewhat crazy dream come true, Robert Mayer for the constant support, Joseph Moran for supervision and Thitiporn Sangchai Giulio Ragazzon for all the help! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/an…

Direct Observation of Polaritonic Chemistry by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (T. W. Ebbesen and co-workers) Maciej Piejko Bianca P. Robert Mayer Joseph Moran Thitiporn Sangchai Giulio Ragazzon #nmrchat #openaccess onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/an…

Oops, we did it again! After the hugely successful carbodiimide-fueled reaction cycle, we wondered, "Can we build a similarly successful cycle but using biology's favorite reaction pair: phosphorylation-dephosphorylation?" Proud to show Simone's work: nature.com/articles/s4146…

Metabolic models for the origin of life predict NADH should reduce keto acids without enzymes. We found such reactivity is turned on by Fe(III) or Al(III) ions (again) and it's stereoselective! Full mechanistic study. Out in Chem. Congrats Robert Mayer! doi.org/10.1016/j.chem…

Happy to share Christine Kriebisch's work in Nature Chemistry! Origin of life research tests how biomolecules like RNA emerge from pools of molecules. The problem is that RNA is unstable. We built a model and tested production and protection of such molecules. nature.com/articles/s4155…

Had a great time at the TU München Organic Institute Kolloquium. Thanks for all the brilliant interactions Job Boekhoven Robert Mayer StorchLab Bach Lab, Hauer lab, Hintermann lab. Thanks Job, for hosting and Golo for the organization.

Happy to highlight the work of Judit Sastre and Advait Thatte from the Mesoscopic Physics of Life (MPol) - Weber Group! We found spontaneous oscillations in synthetic cells. When continuously supplied with chemical fuel, the number of organelles and their location start oscillating. biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Online now: Water, metal ions, and me: A chemist’s tale of serendipity and discovery dlvr.it/TBKDJc

Very glad to have contributed and congrats to Sami and the whole team!

Vibrational Strong Coupling changes regioselectivity, defies the Woodward Hoffmann rules and improves the properties of materials. Who knows, maybe it will even end up stopping famine and curing cancer? But how does it do it all? Not by changing nucleophilicity. ⬇️