Valentín Hornillos Gómez-Recuero

Group: Asymmetric Catalisis

Position: US Tenured Professor

Contact

Tel. ext: 446243

Laboratory: L 201

Office: D 211

Email:

ORCID: 0000-0002-6181-9146 

🌐 PRISMA US

Biography

Dr. Hornillos has established a career across multiple areas of chemistry, including organometallic chemistry, the development of synthetic methodologies, ligand design, fluorescent labeling, and, most notably, asymmetric catalysis and cross-coupling chemistry.

Dr. Hornillos began his scientific career at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (2002–2004), where he worked on the synthesis of metallodendrimers based on N-heterocyclic carbenes and pincer complexes, exploring their catalytic applications. In 2004, after being awarded a PFI fellowship, he joined the Institute of Physical Chemistry “Rocasolano” (IQFR, CSIC) in Madrid to pursue his PhD. His doctoral research focused on the design and synthesis of complex lipid drugs incorporating reactive and fluorescent groups while preserving their therapeutic activity. This challenging work in synthetic chemistry provided him with a strong foundation in fluorescence spectroscopy. During his doctoral studies, he also completed a five-month research stay at Novartis in Vienna. Dr. Hornillos obtained his PhD in 2009 (Excellent cum laude) and he was then awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education (MEC) to join the group of Prof. Ben L. Feringa (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 2016) at the University of Groningen. There, he specialized in asymmetric metal catalysis and was appointed Senior Researcher in 2013. In 2015, he obtained the prestigious Talent Hub Fellowship and moved to the Institute of Chemical Research (IIQ, CSIC) in Seville. Subsequently, in May 2018, he was awarded a Ramón y Cajal contract at the University of Seville, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2024.

Dr. Hornillos has participated in 14 research projects, including four international collaborations, and has received six competitive fellowships, among them the MEC Postdoctoral Grant, the Talent Hub Fellowship, and the Ramón y Cajal contract. His research has resulted in 76 scientific publications, including three reviews, two book chapters, and one licensed patent. His work has been cited over 2,300 times, yielding an h-index of 30. He has also supervised three PhD theses. He has presented his research at 37 scientific conferences, including 26 international meetings, and serves as an active peer reviewer, having completed over 160 manuscript reviews since 2018 for leading international journals. Furthermore, Dr. Hornillos acts as an evaluator for national and international funding agencies, including ANECA (Spain) and ANR (France), and has successfully secured competitive funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the Regional Government of Andalusia, and the University of Seville.

Research interests

Dr. Hornillos’ research interests span diverse areas of chemistry, including organometallic chemistry, synthetic methodology development, ligand design, fluorescent labeling, and, most notably, asymmetric catalysis.

Selected publications

• Rodríguez-Salamanca, P.; De Gonzalo, G.; Carmona, J. A.; López-Serrano, J.; Iglesias-Sigüenza, J.; Fernández, R.; Lassaletta, J. M.; Hornillos, V. Biocatalytic Atroposelective Synthesis of Axially Chiral N-Arylindoles via Dynamic Kinetic Resolution. ACS Catal. 2023, 13 (1), 659–664. https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.2c06175
• Rodríguez-Franco, C.; Ros, A.; Merino, P.; Fernández, R.; Lassaletta, J. M.; Hornillos, V. Dynamic Kinetic Resolution of Indole-Based Sulfenylated Heterobiaryls by Rhodium-Catalyzed Atroposelective Reductive Aldol Reaction. ACS Catal. 2023, 13 (18), 12134–12141. https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.3c03422
• Carmona, J. A.; Rodríguez-Salamanca, P.; Fernández, R.; Lassaletta, J. M.; Hornillos, V. Dynamic Kinetic Resolution of 2-(Quinolin-8-yl)benzaldehydes: Atroposelective Iridium-Catalyzed Transfer Hydrogenative Allylation. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2023, 62 (35), e202306981. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202306981
• Hornillos, V.; Carmona, J. A.; Ros, A.; Iglesias-Sigüenza, J.; López-Serrano, J.; Fernández, R.; Lassaletta, J. M. Dynamic Kinetic Resolution of Heterobiaryl Ketones by Zinc-Catalyzed Asymmetric Hydrosilylation. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2018, 57 (14), 3777–3781. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201713200
• Hornillos, V.; Vila, C.; Otten, E.; Feringa, B. L. Catalytic Asymmetric Synthesis of Phosphine Boronates. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2015, 54 (27), 7867–7871. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201502987