Staff profile

Allegra Franchino, whose name means the Cheerful, is originally from the lake city of Como, in Northern Italy. 

She was trained in asymmetric catalysis, particularly using transition metals and bifunctional ligands, both during her BSc and MSc degrees at the University of Milan (Gennari–Pignataro group) and RWTH Aachen, and her doctoral studies at the University of Oxford under the guidance of Prof. Darren Dixon (2013–2017). After her PhD, she took a permanent post in an API TEVA plant near Milan, but soon missed academic research too much. Hence, in September 2018 she joined the Echavarren group at ICIQ, Spain, supported by a MSCA COFUND fellowship, opening a new research line merging gold and H-bond donor catalysis. She then spent a year at ETH Zurich in the Morandi lab, working on the skeletal editing of N-heterocycles and iron-catalysed amination reactions.

In September 2022, she declined a global MSCA individual fellowship to move to Durham University as Assistant Professor in Organic Chemistry. Her group works on combining transition-metal catalysis, organocatalysis, ligand design and mechanistic studies for the stereoselective synthesis of added-value compounds. Since joining Durham, she has secured over 1.8m€ in funding as a PI, including a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.

Open PhD position - October 2025

A fully funded 4-year PhD studentship for home students is available to start in October 2025 in the Franchino group, on the development of new catalytic modalities for selective organic synthesis. More information on the project are available here: https://www.findaphd.com

To apply, please send to franchinolab@gmail.com

(1) a cover letter detailing your profile and motivation,

(2) a CV including contact details of 2 academic referees,

(3) grades from Bachelor and Master degrees.

This fully funded PhD scholarship is paid for 48 months at UKRI EPSRC national rate (i.e., non-taxable stipend of  £20,780 per year) and available to home students only (British passport holders).

Franchino Group Website

franchinolab.com

Research Groups

• Catalysis and Sustainable Chemical Processes
• Bioactive Chemistry and Synthesis

Current Teaching

• Core Chemistry Year 2 (Aromatic and Heteroaromatic Chemistry) 

• Merging transition-metal and organocatalysis for selective synthesis
• Asymmetric catalysis targeting bioactive compounds, carbo- and heterocycles
• Design of bifunctional ligands and catalysts
• Non-covalent interactions and supramolecular systems
• Mechanistic studies of catalytic reactions (kinetics, modern physical organic chemistry, NMR spectroscopy)

Journal Article

• Falk, E., Franchino, A., Horak, T., Gürtler, L., & Morandi∗, B. (2023). Azide-Free Synthesis of N-Alkyliminophosphoranes from Phosphines and Hydroxylamine Derivatives. Organic Letters, 25(10), 1695-1700. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.orglett.3c00366
• Martí, À., Montesinos-Magraner, M., Echavarren∗, A., & Franchino∗, A. (2022). H-Bonded counterion-directed catalysis: Enantioselective gold(I)-catalyzed addition to 2-alkynyl enones as a case study. European Journal of Organic Chemistry, 38, https://doi.org/10.1002/ejoc.202200518
• Reisenbauer†, J., Green†, O., Franchino, A., Finkelstein, P., & Morandi∗, B. (2022). Late-stage diversification of indole skeletons through nitrogen atom insertion. Science, 377, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.add1383
• Franchino, A., Martí, À., & Echavarren∗, A. (2022). H-Bonded counterion-directed enantioselective Au(I) catalysis. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 144, https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.1c11978
• Franchino, A., Montesinos-Magraner, M., & Echavarren∗, A. (2021). Silver-free catalysis with gold(I) chloride complexes. https://doi.org/10.1246/bcsj.20200358
• Mato†, M., Franchino†, A., García-Morales†, C., & Echavarren∗, A. (2021). Gold-catalyzed synthesis of small rings. Chemical Reviews, 121, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.0c00697
• Franchino∗, A., Martí, À., Nejrotti, S., & Echavarren∗, A. (2021). Silver-free Au(I) catalysis enabled by bifunctional urea- and squaramide-phosphine ligands via H-bonding. Chemistry - A European Journal, 27, https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202101751
• Franchino, A., Chapman, J., Funes-Ardoiz, I., Paton∗, R., & Dixon∗, D. (2018). Catalytic enantio- and diastereoselective Mannich addition of TosMIC to ketimines. Chemistry - A European Journal, 24, https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.201804099
• Franchino, A., Rinaldi, A., & Dixon∗, D. (2017). α-Alkylation of ketimines using visible light photoredox catalysis. RSC Advances, 7, https://doi.org/10.1039/c7ra09248b
• Franchino, A., Jakubec, P., & Dixon∗, D. (2016). Enantioselective synthesis of (–)-chloramphenicol via silver-catalysed asymmetric isocyanoacetate aldol reaction. Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, 14, https://doi.org/10.1039/c5ob02141c
• De La Campa, R., Gammack Yamagata, A., Ortín, I., Franchino, A., Thompson, A., Odell, B., & Dixon∗, D. (2016). Catalytic enantio- and diastereoselective Mannich reaction of α-substituted isocyanoacetates and ketimines. Chemical Communications, 52, https://doi.org/10.1039/c6cc04132a
• Gu, X., Guo, T., Dai, Y., Franchino, A., Fei, J., Zou, C., Dixon∗, D., & Ye∗, J. (2015). Direct catalytic asymmetric doubly vinylogous Michael addition of α,β-unsaturated γ-butyrolactams to dienones. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 54, https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201504276
• Gu, X., Dai, Y., Guo, T., Franchino, A., Dixon∗, D., & Ye∗, J. (2015). A general, scalable, organocatalytic nitro-Michael addition to enones: Enantioselective access to all-carbon quaternary stereocenters. Organic Letters, 17, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.orglett.5b00387