With approval from the Board of Trustees, Prof. Liviu Mirica will join the Illinois Chemistry faculty in January 2019 as the William H. and Janet G. Lycan Professor of Chemistry. He is currently a full professor at Washington University in St. Louis, having started his independent career there in 2008. He is a leader at the junction of inorganic, organic, and biological chemistry.
Trained at the top chemistry departments at Caltech, Stanford University, and UC Berkeley, he has a world-class pedigree with emphasis on the activation of oxygen by metal complexes and metalloenzymes and subsequent oxidation of organic molecules. In this context, Mirica has made important contributions to the development of new catalysts of relevance to renewable energy and oxidative transformations by developing ligands that can stabilize transition metals such as palladium and nickel in unusual oxidation states. In addition, Mirica has been studying the role of metal ions in the aggregation of amyloid peptides implicated in amyloid disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, and he is developing bifunctional therapeutic and diagnostic agents for these neurodegenerative diseases. He has established a vibrant research program, as manifested by funding from NSF, DOE, and NIH. Mirica has the vision that chemical synthesis is most impactful when implemented without regard to traditional boundaries that have previously separated inorganic, organic, and biological chemistry.