The Matile Group

We are a research group in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the University of Geneva, Switzerland. We have 2-5 funded positions available per year for postdoctoral research associates or PhD students. Applications are possible anytime, please send your letter of motivation, your CV and additional documents to stefan.matile@unige.ch. PhD studies in our group take 4 years, postdocs usually 2-3 years, group alumni are mostly active in academia, worldwide, or in industry, often in Switzerland. Our research is supported by a Swiss-ERC Advanced Grant, an SNSF Excellence Grant, and has contributed to the foundation of two National Centres of Competence in Research (NCCRs), Chemical Biology and Molecular Systems Engineering. We are interested in translational supramolecular chemistry, at the interface of synthetic organic, biological and materials chemistry, current emphasis is on organocatalysis and cellular uptake. We expect that the new ways to get into contact on the molecular level will provide access to new structures and functions, which in turn will open up new approaches to tackle significant challenges in science and society. Recent achievements are the discovery of fluorescent probes to image physical forces in biology (fluorescent flippers), catalysis with anion-π interactions, chalcogen and pnictogen bonds and oriented external electric fields, and dynamic covalent exchange cascades to enable and inhibit the penetration of cells (thiol-mediated uptake).