The Chemistry of Pincer Compounds

David Morales-Morales carried out his B.Sc. (1992) and M.Sc. (1995) studies at the School of Chemistry of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM). In 1995 he was awarded a scholarship by the Mexican Government to carry out Doctoral studies at the University of Essex (UK) under the supervision of Prof. Jonathan R. Dilworth. In 1997, he moved to the "Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory? at the Oxford University (UK), getting his Doctorate in 1998. In the same year Prof. Morales-Morales was offered a posdoctoral position by Prof. Craig. M. Jensen in the Department of Chemistry of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA, where he carried out research relevant to the development of a new generation of PCP pincer complex and their use in C-H activation and C-C bond formation.

A beneficiary of the National Program for Repatriation of the National Science and Technology Council (CONACyT-Mexico), Prof. Morales-Morales has worked since May 2001 as a researcher at the Instituto de Quimica-UNAM. His research interests include the chemistry of pincer compounds; the synthesis of phosphorus and sulphur-based compounds and its use as ligands with transition metals; metal-mediated organic synthesis; and mechanistic studies.

Prof. Morales-Morales has published more than 60 papers and a chapter in the book "Modern Coordination Chemistry?, edited by the Royal Society of Chemistry (2002). More recently he has served as editor of the book "The Chemistry of Pincer Compounds? (Elsevier) and he has co-authored a textbook on Organometallic Chemistry, published in Spanish by UNAM. He belongs to chemistry societies in Mexico and the United States. Prof. Morales-Morales has been a visiting professor at the Instituto de Materiales de Aragon-CSIC (Zaragoza, Spain), The Anorganisch-Chemisches Institut der WWU Muenster in Germany, and the Metal Mediated Synthesis - Debye Institute at the University of Utretch (Netherlands).