Plenary
Timothy Noël, University of Amsterdam
Title: From Batch to Flow: Advancing Synthetic Organic Chemistry Through Technological Innovation
Timothy Noël studied Chemical Engineering in Ghent and obtained his PhD in synthetic organic chemistry at the University of Ghent. Next, he worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow with Professor Stephen L. Buchwald. In 2012 he became an assistant professor at Eindhoven University of Technology where he was appointed associate professor in 2017. Currently, he is a Full Professor at the University of Amsterdam and Chair of Flow Chemistry at the Van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences. His research interests are synthetic organic chemistry and technology, and especially the delicate synergy between these two fields. He is the editor-in-chief of Journal of Flow Chemistry.
Ken-Ichiro Sotowa, Kyoto University
Title: Modular and Flexible IoT-Based Automated Experimental Systems
Ken-Ichiro Sotowa is a professor of chemical engineering specializing in continuous flow processes and laboratory automation. After earning his MSc(Eng) and PhD at the University of Leeds under the supervision of Prof. C. McGreavy, he conducted research on microreaction technologies at Kyushu and Tokushima Universities. Since his appointment as professor at Kyoto University in 2019, he has focused on developing flexible automated experimental systems. He served as Head of the Subdivision of Micro Chemical Processes Engineering (2014–2016) and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan (2021–2023).
C. Oliver Kappe, University of Graz
Title: How to handle solids/slurries in flow
C. Oliver Kappe is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Graz (Austria) and Scientific Director of the Center of Continuous Flow Synthesis and Processsing (CCFLOW) at RCPE GmbH. For the past decade the focus of his research has been directed towards flow chemistry/microreaction technology, encompassing a wide variety of synthetic transformations and experimental techniques. His research group is actively involved in projects dealing with API synthesis and manufacturing, employing a number of different enabling and process intensification strategies.
Invited Speakers
Takashi Ohshima, Kyushu University
Title: Development of Solid-Supported Catalysts for Flow Ester Exchange Reactions and Continuous Flow Synthesis of (–)-α-Kainic Acid
Takashi Ohshima was born in Ehime, Japan, in 1968. He received B. Sc. from Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo in 1991, and received his Ph.D. from Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo in 1996. He joined Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. in 1996 and then The Scripps Research Institute as a Postdoctoral fellow in 1997. In 1999, he returned to Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo as an Assistant Professor. He moved to Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University as an Associate Professor in 2005. He has been a Full Professor from 2010 and a Distinguished Professor from 2021 at Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kyushu University. He has been Principal Investigator of Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas “Digitalization-driven Transformative Organic Synthesis (Digi-TOS)”. His research interests include asymmetric catalysis, green & sustainable chemistry, natural product synthesis, and medicinal chemistry. He is a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan (PSJ), the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry Japan (SSOCJ), the American Chemical Society (ACS), The Japanese Society of Process Chemistry (JSPC), Kinka Chemical Society Japan, the Chemical Society of Japan (CSJ), and Catalysis Society of Japan.
Wu Jie, National University of Singapore
Title: Towards On-Demand Synthesis of Organic Small Molecules via Advanced Flow Technologies
Dr. Wu Jie finished his undergraduate study at Beijing Normal University in 2006. In 2012, he earned his Ph.D degree under the supervision of Prof. James Panek in the Department of Chemistry at Boston University. His PhD thesis was Total Synthesis of (-)-Virginiamycin M2 and Chiral Organosilane Based Sequential Transformations to Access Polycyclic Scaffolds. After that, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at MIT, working with Prof. Timothy Jamison and Prof. Alan Hatton. Since July 2015, Jie has been appointed as an assistant professor at National University of Singapore in the Chemistry Department. He also serves as NUS chemistry MSc Program Director.
Dong-Pyo Kim, POSTECH
Title: AI-assisted Auto-Manufacturing of Biopharmaceuticals in Flow
Prof. Kim is a Yonsan-chaired professor of POSTECH Chemical Engineering as a director of Center for Intelligent Microprocess of Pharmaceutical Synthesis. He obtained a Ph.D. in chemistry, a post-doctor in materials engineering, and worked at national lab and university side for over 30 years in total. His flow chemistry focuses on various platforms and processes for scale-up production, auto-manufacturing of API and DDS. He received an Excellent Chemist award in 2017 (KCS), POSTECHIAN in 2016, a Scientist of the Month in 2016, and a Henry McGee Lecturer in 2021 at Virginia State Univ.
Marcus Baumann, University College Dublin
Title: Exploiting Flow Technology for the Discovery and Exploitation of New Chemical Reactions
After graduating from Philipps-University Marburg Marcus Baumann moved to Cambridge for his PhD with Prof. Steven Ley where he focused on the development of new continuous flow approaches towards important organic transformations and selected natural products. This was followed by a postdoctoral position at University of California Irvine, USA, then he took up a postdoctoral position with Prof. Ian R. Baxendale at the University of Durham, where he combined his interests in continuous flow technology and the synthesis of bioactive target molecules. In 2017 he joined University College Dublin as an Assistant Professor in Continuous Flow Chemistry where he focused on new continuous flow methods exploiting photochemistry, biocatalysis and high-energy processes, and was promoted to Associate Professor in March 2023.
Toshikazu Hakogi, Shionogi Pharma Co., Ltd.
Title: Technological Development and the Development of Continuous Production Processes Utilizing Taylor Vortex Flow
Toshikazu Hakogi received his master degree in chemistry and PhD from Kwansei Gakuin University under supervision of Prof. Shigeo Katsumura on the area of natural product synthesis. He started his industrial career on the area of process chemistry with Shionogi Co. Ltd. In 2004 and he was seconded to Shionogi Pharma Co. Ltd., in 2019. At present he is a Group Leader of Continuous production technology department in Shionogi Pharma Co. Ltd. In Japan. His research interest includes development of new methodologies to access continuous reaction and crystallization to forward fully continuous process from starting materials to products.
Yoshihiro Kon, AIST
Title: Continuous-flow Oxidation Using Hydrogen Peroxide: Catalytic Reactions for Value-added Chemicals
Yoshihiro Kon has been a Research Team Leader at National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan since 2017. He received his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Mitsuo Kira, Tohoku University, Japan in 2005. He has consistently built his research career in the division of sustainable chemistry and catalytic chemistry at AIST since 2005. During that time, he also held a joint research fellowship at Hokkaido University, Japan in 2013 and a visiting researcher at Centrale Lille, France in 2015. His main research interest is in the development of catalytic reaction for the production of fine chemicals, especially continuous-flow oxidation.
Thomas Wirth, Cardiff University
Title: Opportunities for Iodine Reagents in Flow Synthesis
Thomas Wirth is professor of organic chemistry at Cardiff University. After studying chemistry in Bonn, he obtained his PhD and at the Technical University of Berlin. After a postdoctoral stay at Kyoto University, he started his independent research at the University of Basel in 1994, before taking up his current position at Cardiff University in 2000. He was invited as a visiting professor to several places. Thomas Wirth was awarded the Werner-Prize from the New Swiss Chemical Society (2000), the Wolfson Research Merit Award from the Royal Society and the Bader Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry (2016). In 2016 he was elected as a fellow of The Learned Society of Wales. His main interests of research concern stereoselective electrophilic reactions, oxidative transformations with hypervalent iodine reagents including mechanistic investigations and electrochemical synthesis performed in microreactors.
Martin D. Johnson, Eli Lilly
Title: Flow Chemistry Concepts and Techniques Applied to Solid Phase Oligonucleotide Synthesis
Dr. Johnson is VP Engineering at Eli Lilly in Synthetic Molecule Design and Development. He was awarded the 2016 ACS Award for Affordable Green Chemistry for work with continuous aerobic oxidations, the 2016 AIChE Award for Outstanding Contribution to QbD for Drug Substance for implementation of continuous hydrogenations, Grignard formation reactions, thermal rearrangement reactions, and crystallizations. He received the 2021 AIChE CRE Practice Award for design and implementation of continuous reactors in the pharmaceutical industry. Recently his group has been applying continuous processing techniques to improve oligonucleotide synthesis.
Polona Žnidaršič Plazl, University of Ljubljana
Title: Flow Biocatalysis – From Biocatalyst and Medium to Reactor and Process Design
Prof. Dr. Polona Žnidaršič Plazl is a professor at University of Ljubljana, where she earned Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering, Master’s in Biochemistry, and PhD in Biochemical Engineering. She has extensive research experience in the USA and Europe, including work at Oregon State University supported by a Fulbright Grant. She co-founded and leads the Microprocess Engineering Research Group at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology of University of Ljubljana, where she leads several international and national research projects. Her current research interests focus on development of biocatalytic and separation processes in microflow systems. Among others, she is a Main Board member of the European Society of Applied Biocatalysis (ESAB) and an initiator and Co-Chair of the conference series Implementation of Microreactor Technology in Biotechnology (IMTB).
Joji Tsurumoto, iFactory
Title: The reality and future vision of fully automated continuous production of pharmaceuticals created by iFactory
My name is Joji Tsurumoto, and I manage business development at iFactory Inc. After receiving a pharmacist’s license, I received my master’s degree in organic chemistry from Nagasaki University. From 2006 to 2019, I was in charge of process development for API of small molecules at Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation. After that, I was fascinated by the possibilities of continuous manufacturing technologies, I contributed to the development of the continuous manufacturing system “iFactory” at Takasago Chemical Corporation for four years. During that time, I received several awards for open innovation and engineering.
Takashi Ouchi, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited
Title: Can Continuous Process Contribute to Sustainability by Design?
Takashi Ouchi is the Process Science Lead in Global Manufacturing Sciences at Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. With over 15 years of experience as a process chemist in Process Chemistry Development Japan at Takeda, he contributed to both early and late-stage development projects and advanced continuous process capabilities for small molecule APIs. In 2020, he transitioned from R&D to the commercial manufacturing division in Cambridge, US, where he now primarily manages tech transfer for commercialization. He serves as a crucial interface between R&D and manufacturing sites, overseeing projects not only for small molecule APIs but also for oligonucleotide projects. Additionally, he took the lead role in the cross-functional sustainability initiative “Roadmap for Commercial Products” within the Sustainability by Design program across Takeda.
Christian H. Hornung, CSIRO
Title: Metal 3D Printing & Machine Learning – New Enabling Technologies for Flow Reactor Design and Reaction Optimisation
Christian H. Hornung is a Research Group Leader at the CSIRO in Melbourne, Australia, which he joined in 2010. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Cambridge University in 2008. Christian has over 20 years of experience working in the flow chemistry and microreactor technology area on the interface between chemistry & engineering. Christian’s recent research interests include work on process intensification for the fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals manufacturing sectors, 3D metal printing of reactors, hierarchical catalysts, distributed manufacturing, hydrogen generation from LOHCs and ammonia, CO2 upgrading, machine learning and automated process optimisation.
Fener Chen, Fudan University
Title:Flow Chemistry-Enabled Asymmetric Synthesis of Cyproterone Acetate in a Chemo-Biocatalytic Approach
Professor Fener Chen received a M.S. in pharmacy and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Sichuan University. Currently, he is a full professor at Fudan University, and also president of Jiangxi Normal University. Professor Chen is a member of Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering. His research interests include asymmetric catalysis, total synthesis of natural products and pharmaceuticals, flow chemistry, process chemistry, and computer assisted mechanism based drug design. He has published more than 400 papers in scientific journals including Nat. Rev. Chem., Chem. Rev., J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., and Nat. Commun. Professor Chen currently is the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal “Green Synthesis and Catalysis”.
Tomohiro Ichitsuka, AIST
Title: Continuous-flow process utilizing heterogeneous catalysts and in-line extraction technology
Tomohiro Ichitsuka is a senior researcher at National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan. He received his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Junji Ichikawa, University of Tsukuba, Japan, in 2015. After a year as a JSPS research fellowship for young scientists (PD), he began his research career at the Interdisciplinary Research Center for Catalytic Chemistry of AIST in 2016. He worked on the development of continuous-flow synthetic methodologies utilizing heterogeneous catalysts. In 2020, he moved to the Research Institute for Chemical Process Technology at the Tohoku Center of AIST, and has been in his current position since 2024. His main research interests are the development of telescoped continuous-flow processes for the production of fine chemicals, particularly the use of heterogeneous catalysts and inline extraction technology.
Eisuke Sato, Okayama University
Title: Electrochemical Organic Synthesis Using a Microflow Reactor through a (Semi-)Catalytic Amount of Electrical Input
Eisuke Sato was born in Saitama, Japan. He finished his undergraduate study at Keio University in 2013 and received his Ph.D degree from Keio University under the supervision of Professor Kiyotake Suenaga in 2018. After postdoctoral work (2018–2020) under Professor Till Opatz (Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz) with financial support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, he joined the research group of Professor Seiji Suga at Okayama University as an assistant professor in 2020. He is currently developing electrochemical synthesis combining the flow technique and the electrochemical construction of natural product skeleton.
Flash Presentations – Industrial Session
Fluitec Mixing & Reaction Solutions AG – Alain Georg
Title: Contiplant assemblies for API applications
Alain Georg graduated in 1991 as a mechanical engineer at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. He began his career at a big Swiss Company for polymerization reactors.
In 1993 he founded the company Fluitec AG. From the very beginning Fluitec manufactured continuous reactors on a large scale. The largest mixer heat exchanger was approx. 20 m long and weighed 20 tons. Operating pressures of up to 300 bar at 350°C are built as standard. During the European research project F3 in 2010, the scalable Contiplant reactors were developed for the laboratory. These millireactors have the characteristic that a scaling of any large flow rates can take place with successful experiments. Alain Georg has been intensively involved in the safety engineering of continuous reactors for the last 3 years. Thanks to this standardized concept, both the production times of the entire assemblies and the commissioning are considerably reduced.
Tacmina Corporation – Eric Trzeciak
Title: Introducing Smoothflow Pumps: Safely Ensuring Continuous, Precise Flow in Reactor Systems
Eric Trzeciak (Overseas Business Department, Tacmina) originally from Columbus, Ohio, USA, Eric moved to Japan in 2019 after graduating from Ohio State University with a degree in Japanese. He worked in Gifu City Hall for around five years where he translated and provided interpretations for foreign residents to make municipal services more accessible to them. Eric joined Tacmina, a leading precision pump manufacturer, at the beginning of last year and is currently looking over mainly the North American and European markets. As a sales engineer, he works with customers to find the optimal pumps and equipment for their liquid transfer needs.
