Lower Saxony Impulse Professorship goes to TU Braunschweig Christopher J. Teskey researches new methods for the formation of organic molecules
The development of general methods for rapidly assembling chemical raw materials into complex molecules is of great interest to the pharmaceutical, agrochemical and cosmetics industries, among others. Prof. Dr. Christopher J. Teskey’s research project will now be funded with around two million euros over a period of five years. The Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture (MWK) and the Volkswagen Foundation are supporting the researcher from Technische Universität Braunschweig with the “Lower Saxony Impulse Professorship”. This new funding line is aimed at universities that are negotiating the appointment and retention of excellent scientists in the early stages of their careers.
Prof. Dr. Christopher J. Teskey impressed the reviewers with his “outstanding experimental research, (…) high scientific added value and potential long-term industrial impact”, according to the MWK.
“As the state of Lower Saxony, we want to attract young top talent with a long-term perspective in science to our universities. With the ‘Lower Saxony Impulse Professorships’, we have a tailor-made funding format to attract and retain young talent. In this way, we are strengthening Lower Saxony as a science location in the competition for excellent young scientists. I am convinced that Prof. Christopher Teskey is a highly qualified young scientist whose outstanding potential will be further developed at TU Braunschweig,” says Falko Mohrs, Lower Saxony’s Minister for Science and Culture.
New high-throughput technologies and machine learning in Chemistry
Prof. Christopher Teskey: “I am delighted that the zukunft.niedersachsen programme is supporting the research of my group. This will allow us to introduce new high-throughput technologies into our laboratories. At the same time, we are looking forward to new collaborations with colleagues in the field of machine learning. This funding will undoubtedly allow us to take our research in Braunschweig to the next level and focus on longer-term and more ambitious goals.”
Constant innovation in the development of new methods is required to expand the range of molecules that can be synthesised and to make them available efficiently. As part of the Impulse Professorship, Prof. Teskey will develop new catalytic synthesis platforms to convert chemical feedstocks such as olefins, carbon dioxide and carboxylic acids into complex molecules. Secondly, he will exploit innovative technologies that are widely used in industry but underrepresented in academia. The introduction of a state-of-the-art, semi-automated, high-throughput experimental facility will dramatically increase the rate of reaction discovery while providing an ideal data acquisition platform for the development of machine learning in Chemistry.
From Manchester to Vienna, via Aachen to Braunschweig
Christopher Teskey studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge (UK). In 2012, he moved to the University of Manchester to complete his dissertation in Organic Chemistry under the supervision of Michael Greaney until 2016. He then completed a postdoc at the University of Vienna under Nuno Maulide, funded by a Lise Meitner scholarship from the Austrian Science Fund. From 2019, he worked as a junior research group leader at RWTH Aachen University, funded by a Liebig scholarship from the FCI, before accepting a W2 professorship at TU Braunschweig in November 2023.
In June 2024, he received the Lecturer Award from the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie, one of the highest honours for young scientists in Chemistry.
About the Lower Saxony Impulse Professorship
With this zukunft.niedersachsen funding line, the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation are supporting universities in Lower Saxony for a period of five years to attract promising academic talents in the early stages of their careers to the science location of Lower Saxony and to strengthen their professorships.
The funding is aimed at researchers at the end of their early career phase, up to a maximum of ten years after their doctorate, and is intended to enhance their career potential.
The “Lower Saxony Impulse Professorship” is one of three funding lines of the “Lower Saxony Professorships”, which are intended to attract or retain scientists to Lower Saxony within the framework of personal funding (Lower Saxony Professorship, Lower Saxony Profile Professorship and Lower Saxony Impulse Professorship).