Visiting Professorships in 2023

Prof. László Kürti was born in Hungary in 1973. He received his diploma in chemistry from Lajos Kossuth University (now University of Debrecen) in 1998 and a M.Sc. at the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2001 under the supervisoon of Prof. Michael Harmata. Subsequently he completed his Ph.D. in the group of Amos B. Smith III at the University of Pennsylvania in 2006. After having worked on the synthesis of antiangiogenic agents inspired by the structure of Cortistatin A in the group of Nobel prize winner E. J. Corey at Harvard University, he started his independent career as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biochemistry at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, in 2010. In 2015 he then became an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Rice University, Houston.

Prof. László Kürti's research involves the invention of new enantioselective reactions for the synthesis of functionalized biaryls, heterocycles, and carbocycles. He is also well known for his authorship of the organic chemistry textbooks Molecules and Medicine, and Enantioselective Chemical Synthesis (both with E. J. Corey), as well as, Strategic Applications of Named Reactions in Organic Synthesis (with Barbara Czakó)