Chemists and physicists at the Center for Nanosystems Chemistry have initiated a new collaboration at the University of Würzburg. The aim of their work is to design and produce novel materials with tailored properties for efficient interaction with light. The German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding the new Research Unit (Forschergruppe) with 2.3 million € over the next three years.

Prof. Jean-Marie Lehn (Université de Strasbourg) will give the Siegfried Hünig Lecture 2012 on May, 7th.

Axel Muck was awarded "Best Apprentice in the Region Würzburg/Schweinfurt", and Dr. Alfons Ledermann was honoured for his outstanding commitment to apprentice training.

Professor Siegfried Hünig's 90th birthday was celebrated on May 20th with an impressive gathering of scientists from all over the country. The testimonial lecture given by Professor Manfred Reetz turned out to be the initiation of the annual "Sigfried Hünig Lecture" which is funded by donations.

The group of Jürgen Seibel and researchers from Brunswick have discovered how a particular enzyme synthesizes natural large sugar molecules. With this knowledge, they can now produce tailor-made sugars, which are known as prebiotics.

Matthias Lehmann has been appointed to the new professorship of organic materials. Actually, Lehmann is not really new to the University of Würzburg, which he joined already in October 2010 as a Heisenberg-fellow and junior research group leader.

Sabine Stahl, former apprentice in the Institute of Organic Chemistry, received an award for the best exam in 2010 from Claus Bolza-Schünemann, president of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK).

Gustavo Fernández, currently postdoc with Professor Frank Würthner, is granted the highly prestigious Sofja Kovalevskaja Award , which allows him to set up his own research group.

On October, 1st Matthias Lehmann moved from the Chemnitz University of Technology to the University of Würzburg, where he finds best conditions for continuing his research on soft, organised materials and liquid crystals. This step forward is supported by a Heissenberg fellowship which allows him to establish a new research group in Würzburg.

Florian Beuerle is inspired by the idea of developing novel chemical systems for potential materials applications and has now chosen the Institute of Organic Chemistry in Würzburg to establish his own junior research group.

By means of molecular and crystal engineering Frank Würthner and co-workers obtained high-performance organic thin-film transistors (TFTs) based on a highly electron-poor octachloroperylene diimide.

A third chair („Physical Organic Chemistry“) has been established at the Institute of Organic Chemistry in order to meet future challenges in material-oriented research.

Prabhat K. Sahu, post-doc at the Institute of Organic Chemistry (research group of Prof. Engels), was awarded the poster prize at the 2nd Indo-German Symposium on "Modeling Chemical and Biological (Re)Activity" held in Wildbad Kreuth.

The “Academic Ranking of World Universities 2009” (“Shanghai Ranking”), a highly regarded research ranking of the 400 best universities worldwide, puts Würzburg’s chemistry department in second place among all German universities and in 37th place worldwide.