Welcome to the Sparr Research Group

06 Jan 2026

Stereoselective total synthesis of skew-tetramantane

Congratulations Xiao-Yu for successfully developing the stereoselective adamantalogous cage-extension strategy to access diamond’s chiral core – skew-tetramantane: previously only accessible from fossil fuels after elaborate separations.…

28 Nov 2025

Faculty Prize 2025 to Valeriia

The Faculty of Science of the University of Basel awarded the Faculty Prize 2025 to Valeriia. Huge congratulations on this exceptionally prestigious recognition.

11 Dec 2024

Aromatic ring-opening metathesis

A remarkable achievement by Valeriia: aromatic rings can be opened by metathesis. Many congratulations!

28 Jun 2024

Atroposelective Wittig Reaction

Great achievement by Kalipada, Zhengxing and Janis: Phosphine redox catalysis enables the enantioselective synthesis of atropisomers by an arene-forming Wittig reaction.

07 Dec 2023

Catalyst Control over Pentavalent Stereocenters

Many congratulations Anton and Jianyang for demonstrating that stereoselective catalysis is capable of controlling stereocenters with bonds to five residues: a key milestone in our research.

02 Oct 2023

Valeriia Hutskalova selected as one of the winners at the Syngenta chemistry workshop for talented PhD students

31 Aug 2023

1st Prize: Best Presentation Award for Tanno Schmidt at the Swiss Summer School on Organic Synthesis

Congratulations Tanno for winning the 1st Prize: Best Presentation Award at the Swiss Summer School on Organic Synthesis, sponsored by Helvetica and Chemistry Europe.

04 Aug 2023

Helvetica Prize of the Swiss Chemical Society 2023 for Xingxing Wu

Many congratulations to Xingxing Wu (now Professor at Guizhou University) for winning a Helvetica Prize of the Swiss Chemical Society: the Board of Helvetica Chimica Acta selected his work «X-Ray Crystallographic Studies of Quasi-Racemates…

27 Jul 2023

Poster/Short Presentation Prize for Valeriia at the 27th International symposium: Synthesis in organic chemistry in Oxford, UK

Very well done Valeriia. At the 27th International symposium: Synthesis in organic chemistry in Oxford, UK, Valeriia was awarded the Poster/Short Presentation Prize.

24 Jul 2023

Atroposelective Redox Organocatalysis

Many congratulations Daniel and Kalipada for developing atroposelective phosphine/phosphine oxide redox catalysis for the isoquinoline-forming Staudinger–aza-Wittig reaction.