Ruben Martin

Institut Català d'Investigació Química (ICIQ)

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics

Ruben Martin was born in Barcelona in 1976. He received his PhD in 2003 at the Universitat de Barcelona with Prof. Antoni Riera. In January 2004 he moved to the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung as a Humboldt postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Alois Fürstner and in May 2005 he undertook further postdoctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Prof. Stephen L. Buchwald. In September 2008 he joined the ICIQ as a group leader. His current research interests concern the discovery and development of synthetically useful organometallic protocols. Ruben Martin was promoted to Associate Professor in July 2013 and to ICREA Research Professor in October 2013. During his time at ICIQ he has received the 2010 RSEQ Young Investigator Award, the 2011 Thieme Chemistry Journal Award, the Eli Lilly Young Research Investigator Award 2011 and the 2015 RSEQ Excellent Research Award. In 2011, he received the ERC Starting Grant awarded by the European Research Council.


Research interests

Our research is focused on the development of new catalytic protocols for producing synthetically relevant molecules from ubiquitous and simple precursors by activating inert, abundant and ubiquitous C-H, C-C and C-O bonds, probably the most fundamental linkages in nature. Additionally, my research has also been focused on the design of new catalytic protocols that utilize biomass-derived feedstocks such as carbon dioxide (CO2) for preparing valuable carboxylic acid derivatives under mild reaction conditions. During the last years, my research at ICIQ has provided solutions to relevant and challenging synthetic problems from both scientific and industrial standpoint, thus providing a new opportunities to build up molecular complexity from simple and abundant precursors

Selected publications

– Wang X, Nakajima M, Serrano E & Martin R 2016, ‘Alkyl Bromides as Mild Hydride Sources in Ni-Catalyzed Hydroamidation of Alkynes with Isocyanates’ ,Journal Of The American Chemical Society, 138, 15531–15534.

– Zárate C, van Gemmeren M, Somerville R J & Martin R 2016, ‘Phenol Derivatives: Modern Electrophiles in Cross-Coupling Reactions’, Advances in Organometallic Chemistry, Elsevier, 66,143-222 (ISBN:978-0-12-804709).

– Börjesson M, Moragas A, Gallego D & Martin R 2016, ‘ Metal-Catalyzed Carboxylation of Organic (Pseudo) halides with CO2 ‘, ACS Catalysis. 6, 6739–6749.

– Juliá-Hernández F, Gaydou M, Serrano E, Van Gemmeren M & Martin R 2016, ‘Ni- and Fe-catalyzed carboxylation of unsaturated hydrocarbons with CO2 ‘,Topics in Current Chemistry, 374:45.

– Moragas A & Martin R 2016, ‘Nickel-Catalyzed Reductive Carboxylation of Cyclopropyl Motifs with Carbon Dioxide’, Synthesis 2016, 48, 2816.

– Serrano E & Martin R 2016, ‘Nickel-Catalyzed reductive Amidation of Unactivated Alkyl Bromides’, Angew Chem Int Ed, 55,11207-11211.

– Börjesson M, Moragas A & Martin R 2016, ‘Ni-Catalyzed Carboxylation of Unactivated Alkyl Chlorides with CO2’, Journal Of The American Chemical Society, 138 , 7504–7507.

– Gutierrez-Bonet A, Julia-Hernandez F, de Luis B & Martin  R 2016, ‘Pd-Catalyzed C(sp(3))-H Functionalization/Carbenoid Insertion: All-Carbon Quaternary Centers via Multiple C-C Bond Formation’, Journal Of The American Chemical Society, 138, 20, 6384 – 6387.

– Moragas Antoni, Gaydou M & Martin R 2016, ‘Nickel-Catalyzed Carboxylation of Benzylic C-N Bonds with CO2’, Angewandte Chemie-international Edition, 55, 16, 5053 – 5057.


Selected research activities

Selected conferences:

  1. Stratingh Institute for Chemistry
  2. The Scripps Research Institute
  3. University of California Irvine
  4. 251st ACS National Meeting & Exposition
  5. Janssen
  6. EPFL
  7. 9ème Recontres Chimie Organique Marseille
  1. SISOC XI
  2. Princeton University
  3. Merck
  4. Pfizer
  5. University pf Pennsylvania
  6. C-O activation symposium
  7. Osaka University