Frederic Lynen PhD

Frederic Lynen began his academic career at Ghent University in Belgium, where he obtained his Ph.D. in the screening of combinatorial libraries via affinity electro- and pressure-driven separation techniques in combination with mass spectrometry under the supervision of Prof. Pat Sandra in 2002. He then moved to the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa for postdoctoral research on the possibilities of hyphenated (electro) chromatographic separation techniques in natural product analysis. In 2004, he returned to Ghent University with the start-up of the Pfizer Analytical Research Centre (PARC). During this decade, a long collaboration between academia and the pharmaceutical industry the transition towards a greener, better resolving, and faster analytical separation processes in the pharmaceutical industry was prepared in various ways. He thereby further specialized in column technology through the manufacturing of temperature-responsive stationary phases allowing purely aqueous HPLC while also supervising 15 Ph.D., postdoctoral, and MSc research projects active in the fields of e.g. column technology, green chromatography, matrix effects in mass spectrometry, oligonucleotide analysis, comprehensive HPLC, metabolite analysis, sample preparation, and high-efficiency SFC.

Since 2011 Dr. Lynen is an associate professor, in charge of the Separation Science Group in the Department of Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry, at Ghent University. His research interests span a broad range of activities from fundamental (electro-) chromatographic performance predictions, improved predictive chromatographic modeling through Stationary Phase Optimize Liquid and Supercritical Fluid Chromatography (SOS-LC and SOS-SFC), stationary phase synthesis, and column design for HPLC, SFC, GC and CEC, purely aqueous green temperature-responsive liquid chromatography, the development various alternative 2-D LCxLC, LC-LC, LCxCE and GCxGC approaches, the design of enhanced separation and quantitation approaches specifically for medium-sized and large molecules, matrix effects studies in mass spectrometry, immobilized artificial membrane chromatography, universal detection, natural product, and complex pharmaceutical analysis, and also biomarker discovery in the framework of biomedical, art-historical and archeological research projects.

Dr. Lynen has published about 120 papers (h-index of 28 in Scopus, citations number > 2300). He has given more than 40 presentations at national and international conferences. His (currently expanding) research group now comprises 6 Ph.D., 2 postdoctoral, and 2 MSc researchers, who have been awarded about 10 poster awards at major chromatographic conferences in recent years. In 2012, Frederic was awarded the Silver medal during the Method Development Olympics.

Frederic is actively also involved in the support of the separation science community. This, for example, through his participation on the editorial board of Journal of Chromatography A, as a regular reviewer for the journals in the field of separation sciences, and, last but not least, as chair of various editions (2012, 2014, 2016) of the International Conferences in Hyphenated Techniques in Chromatography (HTC) and Hyphenated Techniques for Sample Preparation (HTSP). He is also permanent chair of the Hyphenated Techniques in Chromatography section of the Flemish Royal Society of chemistry allowing for dissemination of the research in separation sciences to broader audiences. Frederic teaches a variety of courses including Organic Chemistry, Separation Methods, Organic Mass Spectrometry, Green Chemistry, and Chemistry and Society courses in the Bachelor’s and Master’s programs at Ghent University, together with occasional specialized courses in the line of the research activities.

Professor Lynn has demonstrated his exceptional abilities, application, and commitment to the field of separation science and as such, the Chromatographic Society is delighted to honor him with the Jubilee Medal for 2019. Frederic will receive his award at HPLC 2019 in Milan.