Rate My Professor Tynchtyk Amatov

Tynchtyk Amatov is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry in the Division of Science at New York University Abu Dhabi. Born in Kyrgyzstan, he obtained his BSc and MSc degrees in Chemistry from Lomonosov Moscow State University. He earned his PhD from Charles University in Prague and the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (IOCB Prague), where he worked under Ullrich Jahn to develop radical methodologies for the synthesis of complex natural products. Following his PhD, Amatov conducted postdoctoral research at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich with Thomas Carell on origin-of-life research and collaborated with Hendrik Zipse to uncover a homolytic bond activation mechanism induced by amide bond geometry distortion. He subsequently held a postdoctoral position at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, with Benjamin List, focusing on asymmetric organocatalysis. Amatov joined NYU Abu Dhabi in the Fall of 2022.

Amatov's research centers on catalysis, natural product synthesis, medicinal chemistry, and nucleic acids chemistry. His laboratory at NYUAD aims to discover and develop new sustainable catalytic methods and processes, as well as enabling molecular technologies for applications in natural product synthesis, medicinal chemistry, and chemical biology. Notable contributions include the unified prebiotically plausible synthesis of pyrimidine and purine RNA ribonucleotides (Science, 2019), a prebiotically plausible scenario of an RNA-peptide world (Nature, 2022), confinement-controlled catalytic asymmetric Mukaiyama aldolizations (JACS, 2021), and nitrogen-centered organic persistent radicals catalyzing redox-neutral C-C bond forming reactions (Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2025). He received the Thieme Chemistry Journals Award 2023 for early-stage independent researchers in chemical synthesis and catalysis.