Our group focuses on the development of new catalysis concepts within the areas of organocatalysis, transition metal catalysis, and, to some extent, biocatalysis. Since 1999, the List-group concentrates on enantioselective organocatalysis as a fundamental approach complementing biocatalysis and transition metal catalysis. We have a profound interest in developing “new reactions”, designing and identifying new principles for the development of organocatalysts, expanding the scope of already developed catalysts such as proline, using organocatalysis in the synthesis of natural products and pharmaceuticals, and also investigating the mechanism by which organocatalysts activate their substrates. Furthermore, in 2005 our group has first conceptualized another approach to asymmetric catalysis, namely asymmetric counteranion directed catalysis (ACDC). This idea has not only progressed within the department but also at other institutions around the globe into a general strategy for asymmetric synthesis applied in organocatalysis as well as in transition metal catalysis and Lewis acid catalysis.
University of Cologne
Lectures "Organocatalysis"
Prof. List and his Ph.D. student Denis Höfler have developed "intelligent-crowd-reviewing" as a new online-collaboration-tool, which offers many advantages to classical peer reviewing and benefits from referee interaction.
You can find the nature article here: https://www.nature.com/news/crowd-based-peer-review-can-be-good-and-fast-1.22072
Dr. Manuel van Gemmeren who worked until February 2015 in the department of Homogeneous Catalysis has just received two prestigious awards for his outstanding research work. At the annual meeting of the Max Planck Society in Saarbrücken he was honoured with the Otto Hahn Medal and the Otto Hahn award. The awards were granted for his development of exceptionally active and selective organocatalysts.
Dr. Mattia Monaco from List Group is finalist for the 2016 Reaxys PhD Prize
Dr. Mattia Monaco, who worked until January 2016 in the List Group at the Max-Planck-Insitut für Kohlenforschung, is one of the 45 finalists for the 2016 Reaxys PhD Prize. The team of Reaxys received nearly 450 submissions with top class quality.
The representative paper of Dr. Mattia Monaco is entitled: "Activation of Carboxylic Acids in Asymmetric Organocatalysis" published in Angewandte Chemie, 2014.
Ben List ist very proud of his former PhD-student and sends congratulations.
Again within a few months, the research work of Benjamin List, director at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung and leader of the department for Homogeneous Catalysis, was honoured with one of the most important and highly respected research awards. After recently receiving the prestigious Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize from the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) the 48-year-old researcher was now awarded with the ERC Advanced Grant from the European Research Council. Both the ERC Advanced Grant as well as the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize include research funding of up to € 2.5 million.
These are great news for the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim and also for Benjamin List, who receives the ERC Advanced Grant for the second time. The grant will support the research work of List concerning the establishment of a new class of catalysts based on strong carbon-based acids.
Benjamin List revceives the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize
The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize is the most important research award in Germany. The Leibniz Programme, established in 1985, aims to improve the working conditions of outstanding researchers, expand their research opportunities, relieve them of administrative tasks, and help them employ particularly qualified early career researchers. A maximum of €2.5 million is provided per award.
Our research aims towards the invention of new strategies for the development of "perfect chemical reactions" that combine quantitative yields and high atom economy, while not requiring toxic solvents, protecting groups, heating, cooling, or inert gas atmosphere. We approach this ultimate goal by using selective catalysis based on small organic molecules. In recent years it has been demonstrated that these organocatalysts can be as efficient and selective as the more commonly used metal-based catalysts, resulting in an “explosive” research activity in this new and exciting area of Organocatalysis.
We explore small-molecule amines as asymmetric catalysts for carbonyl transformations. “Asymmetric Aminocatalysis” functions by activating carbonyl compounds as iminium ions and enamines using a catalytic amount of an amine. Our strategy complements existing catalytic methods based on chiral acids and bases that typically involve metals. After our studies on the first asymmetric proline-catalyzed intermolecular aldol reaction in 2000, we realized that enamine catalysis has the potential to be a general strategy for the catalytic utilization of carbanion equivalents. Since then we have discovered several other transformations that can be catalyzed by primary or secondary amines. Currently our research aims towards the synthesis and identification of new catalyst structures to tackle further exciting and challenging problems and to discover new amine-catalyzed transformations.
Due to the vast number of reactions that can be catalyzed by Brønsted acids a core area of our research focuses on the development and application of chiral organic Brønsted acids for asymmetric counteranion-directed catalysis (ACDC).
To date, the field of Lewis acid catalysis has been dominated by (transition) metal chemistry. To provide purely organic counterparts to these traditional catalytic systems we are dedicated to the synthesis and identification of organic Lewis acids. In 2009, we demonstrated that our chiral disulfonimides (DSI) are not only excellent Brønsted acids, but form strong Lewis acids upon silylation. These in situ generated Lewis acids facilitated a variety of enantioselective “silyl-transfer” reactions, including a three-component synthesis of homoallylic amines, as well as a Mukaiyama-aldol reaction between aldehydes and silyl ketene acetals. Most DSI-catalyzed transformations, however, are limited to non-enolizable acceptor carbonyl compounds (aldehydes or imines), due to lack of catalytic activity, chemo- and enantioselectivity. Our recently developed, confined and highly acidic imidodiphosphorimidate (IDPi) catalysts have overcome this limitation, and were able to solve long-standing problems in this field, such as the enantioselective Hosomi-Sakurai allylation of aldehydes.
Furthermore, we were able to extend the concept of organic Lewis acid catalysis to a highly enantio- and diastereoselective Diels-Alder reaction, in which only substoichiometric amounts of a silylating agent were required to activate our newly developed binaphthyl-allyl-tetrasulfone (BALT) C-H acid.
Most reactions proceed via charged intermediates and/or transition states. This allows to manipulate the course of a reaction and consequently also its stereochemical outcome by careful choice of a chiral counterion. In asymmetric phase transfer catalysis this concept is well established by using e.g. chiral quaternary ammonium cations. However, the anionic counterpart to this methodology, the use of chiral anions to influence the stereochemical outcome of reactions proceeding via cationic intermediates has been elusive for a long time. In 2006 we disclosed that the combination of a chiral phosphate anion and an achiral amine is a powerful catalytic system for the highly enantioselective transfer hydrogenation of enals in which the asymmetric induction is solely provided by the chiral counteranion. During the last years we have extended this concept to other organocatalytic as well as metal catalyzed transformations, focusing on innovative reactions and potentially new chiral counteranions.
The ultimate goal of method development in organic synthesis is to provide useful and reliable tools for the synthesis of complex molecules such as natural products or biologically relevant compounds and to lead to a better understanding of the underlying principles. The value of a new method is often judged by the number of possible applications and the gain of knowledge it comes along with. In our group we are tackling chemical problems of asymmetric bond construction that are basically unsolved yet. Consequently a successfully developed new method should provide access to useful building blocks that can be used to easily ensemble complex molecules. Therefore the synthesis of natural products and pharmaceuticals is an important element of our research, not only to evaluate the potential of a new method, but also as a stimulus and source of inspiration towards new exciting discoveries.
Dr. Adair, Gareth
Postdoc, 08/2007 - 07/2008
Dr. Alachraf, Mohammed Wasim
Postdoc, 04/2014 - 06/2016; Postdoc, 02/2017 - 03/2017
Dr. Amatov, Tynchtyk
+49(0)208/306-2440
amatov((atsign))kofo.mpg.de
Antenucci, Achille
guest scientist, 01/2018 - 05/2018
Arlt, Jennifer
Apprentice, 09/ 2014 - 07/2017; Technician, 08/2017 - 11/2017
Dr. Aukland, Miles
+49(0)208/306-2458
aukland((atsign))kofo.mpg.de
Dr. Bae, Han Yong
Postdoc 09/2015 - 01/2019
Dr. Bécart, Diane
Postdoc 02/2018 - 07/2019
Dr. Blond, Aurélie
Postdoc, 01/15 - 03/2017
Bock, Dominique Anna
PhD Student, 10/2010 - 03/2013
Dr. Bondzic, Bojan
Postdoc, 02/2014 - 01/2015
Dr. Bordeau, Guillaume
Postdoc, 01/2010 - 08/2011
Breuer, Lukas Stephanus
+49(0)208/306-2464
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Dr. Buyck, Thomas
Postdoc, 03/2015 - 08/2016
Dr. Chandler, Carley
Postdoc, 09/2006 - 09/2008
Dr. Cheng, Xu
Postdoc, 12/2005 - 12/2008
Dr. Chusov, Denis
Postdoc, 07/2009 - 07/2010
Dr. Coric, Ilija
PhD Student, 09/2008 - 06/2013
Correia, José Tiago Menezes
PhD Student, 01/15 - 01/16; Visiting Doctoral Candidate 10/16 - 12/16
Danielsson, Diana Xi
PhD Student 10/2017 - 07/2019
Dr. Das, Sayantani
+49(0)208/306-2440
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Dašková, Vanda
Master-Student, 07/2017 - 12/2017
Dr. De, Chandra Kanta
+49(0)208/306-2459
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de Fusco, Claudia
Visiting Doctoral Candidate, 04/2012 - 08/2012
Dehn, Stefanie
+49(0)208/306-2457
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Dr. Demoulin, Nicolas
Postdoc, 01/2010 - 12/2012
Diaz de los Bernardos Sanchez, Miriam
Visiting Doctoral Candidate, 08/2012 - 11/2012
Díaz-Oviedo, Christian David
+49(0)208/306-2454
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Döhring, Arno
Technician - 12/2018
Döhring, Camila
Student Assistant, 09/2008 - 11/2013
Dr. Dupré, Nathalie
Postdoc, 04/2011 - 03/2013
Eichert, Pina
Student Assistant, 06/2015 - 09/2015
Erkkilä, Anniina
Guest Scientist, 10/2005 - 12/2005
Dr. Fang, Yewen
Postdoc, 03/2009 - 09/2010
Freitag, Lina
+49(0)208/306-2459
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Fröhlich, Laura
Student Assistant, 03/2017 - 03/2018
Galiea, Pedro Llamas
Visiting Doctoral Candidate, 04/2005 - 07/2005
Galzerano, Patrizia
Visiting Doctoral Candidate, 04/2008 - 12/2008
Dr. Gandhi, Shikha
Postdoc, 10/2009 - 12/2012
Garayalde Hernandez, David
Postdoc, 10/2012 - 09/2014
Dr. Garcia Garcia, Patricia
Postdoc, 06/2007 - 05/2009
Dr. Garcia Garcia, Pilar
Postdoc, 08/2008 - 01/2009 & 06/2009 - 06/2010
Garczynski, Anika
Apprentice, 01/2015 - 12/2016; Technician, 01/2017 - 12/2017
Dr. Gatzenmeier, Tim
Master-Student 08/2013 - 01/2014, PhD-Student, 04/2014 - 09/2018, Postdoc 10/2018 - 12/2018
Gerosa, Gabriela
guest scientist, 04/2017 - 09/2017
Dr. Gerosa, Gabriela
+49(0)208/306-2440
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Dr. Ghosh, Santanu
+49(0)208/306-2458
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Grimm, Joyce
+49(0)208/306-2459
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Grossmann, Oleg
+49(0)208/306-2459
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Gruenwaldt, Caterina
Guest Scientist, 01/2008 - 03/2008; Intern, 07/2008 - 08/2008; Doctoral Candidate, 01/2010 - 03/2010 & 02/2011 - 05/2011
Dr. Guin, Joyram
Postdoc, 07/2010 - 12/2012
Dr. Halder, Rajkumar
Postdoc, 01/2007 - 01/2009
Hannappel, Marianne
technician, 1968 - 04/2015
Dr. Hechavarria Fonseca, Maria Teresa
Research Assistant, 08/2003 - 07/2007
Hermsdorfer, Sylvia
Apprentice, 09/2014 - 12/2017 ; Technician, 01/2018- 08/2018
Dr. Hoffmann, Sebastian
PhD-Student, 05/2005 - 07/2008
Dr. Höfler, Denis
PhD Student 10/2014 - 07/2018, Postdoc 08/2018 - 10/2018
Dr. Huang, Shenlin
Postdoc, 01/2012 - 12/2014
Dr. Huy, Peter
Postdoc, 04/2013 - 08/2013
Dr. Hyodo, Kengo
Postdoc, 04/2013 - 03/2014
Ito, Tomohiro
+49(0)208/306-2457
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Dr. James, Thomas
Postdoc, 08/2013 - 07/2015
Jang, Hyeong Bin
Guest Scientist, 01/2009 - 02/2009 & 12/2009 - 02/2010
Jansen, Maximilian
+49(0)208/306-2462
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Dr. Jiang, Gaoxi
Postdoc, 01/2009 - 12/2011
Juhl, Martin
PhD Student, 06/2018 - 11/2018
Kaltsidis, Alexandra
+49(0)208/306-2411
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Dr. Kampen, Daniela
PhD-Student, 11/2005 - 06/2009
Dr. Kasaplar Ozkal, Pinar
Postdoc, 10/2014 - 03/2016
Kennemur, Jennifer
+49(0)208/306-2440
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Dr. Kim, Hyejin
Postdoc, 03/2015 - 03/2018
Dr. Kim, Ji Hye
PhD 09/2011 - 10/2015, Postdoc 11/2015 - 11/2015
Konrad, David
Master-Student, 11/2012 - 08/2013
Dr. Kötzner, Lisa
PhD Student 09/2012 - 04/2016 ; Postdoc 04/2016 - 07/2016
Dr. Kundu, Dipti Sankar
Postdoc, 04/2013 - 06/2015
Ky, Fiona
Guest Scientist, 02/2010 - 07/2010
Dr. Ladepeche, Arnaud
Postdoc, 04/2006 - 09/2008
Laws, Stephen
Visiting Doctoral Candidate 04/17 - 06/17
Lay, Frank
PhD Student, 01/2007 - 06/2011
Dr. Lee, Anna
PhD Student, 11/2008 - 11/2012
Lee, Ji Woong
PhD Student, 09/2009 - 06/2013
Dr. Lee, Sunggi
Postdoc 02/2014 - 01/2019
Dr. Li, Shen
Postdoc, 12/2009 - 11/2011
Dr. Li, Xiaoguang
Postdoc, 11/2005 - 02/2006
Li, Yihang
+49(0)208/306-2454
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Dr. Liao, Saihu
PhD Student 09/2007 - 09/2011 & Postdoc 11/2014 - 03/2016
Dr. Lifchits, Olga
PhD Student, 09/2008 - 04/2012
Dr. Lindner, Monika
+49(0)208/306-2412
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Prof. Dr. List, Benjamin
+49(0)208/306-2410
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Dr. Liu, Luping
PhD Student, 08/2013 - 10/2017; Postdoc 11/2017 - 12/2017
Liu, Yuwei
PhD-Student (Stipendiat), 05/2007 - 02/2008
Maity, Anirban
+49(0)208/306-2457
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Dr. Maji, Rajat
+49(0)208/306-2459
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Dr. Majumdar, Nilanjana
Postdoc 05/2016 - 05/2017
Mandrelli, Francesca
+49(0)208/306-2440
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Dr. Manzano, Ruben
Guest Scientist, 07/2008 - 09/2008
Martin, Nolwenn
PhD-Student, 01/2005 - 03/2009
Dr. Martinez Cuezva, Alberto
Postdoc, 05/2010 - 04/2013
Dr. Maulide, Nuno
Group Leader, 2009 - 2013
Mayer, Sonja
PhD-Student, 04/2004 - 09/2007
Dr. Michrowska-Pianowska, Anna Aleksandra
Postdoc, 05/2006 - 12/2008
Dr. Mitra, Raja
Postdoc, 03/2017 - 09/2018
Mitschke, Benjamin
+49(0)208/306-2440
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Dr. Monaco, Mattia Riccardo
PhD 11/2011 - 10/2015, Postdoc 11/2015 - 01/2016
Dr. Moumne, Roba
Postdoc, 02/2006 - 01/2007
Dr. Mukherjee, Santanu
Postdoc, 06/2006 - 05/2008
Müller, Steffen
PhD Student, 02/2008 - 01/2012
Münzer, Lukas
Intern 02/2018 - 04/2018
Dr. Musa, Sanaa
Postdoc, 10/2014 - 02/2015
Dr. Nicoletti, Marcello
Postdoc, 11/2005 - 11/2006
Nielsen, Chris
guest scientist, 08/2018 - 08/2018
Dr. Obradors, Carla
+49(0)208/306-2454
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Oppelaar, Barry
Intern 04/2017 - 09/2017
Dr. Ouyang, Jie
+49(0)208/306-2440
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Dr. Ozores Viturro, Lidia
Postdoc, 01/2005 - 12/2006
Dr. Pan, Subhas Chandra
PhD Student 09/2005 - 07/2008, Postdoc 01/2011 - 09/2011 & guest scientist 05/2014 - 07/2014 & 11/2015 - 12/2015
Dr. Pesciaioli, Fabio
Postdoc, 05/2011 - 07/2014; wiss. Mitarbeiter, 05/2014 - 07/2014
Dr. Petkova, Desislava
Postdoc, 01/2016 - 07/2017
Dr Pinto, Artur
Postdoc, 12/2007 - 05/2010
Dr. Pretorius, René
Postdoc 11/2017 - 10/2019
Dr. Prévost, Sébastien
Postdoc, 01/2012 - 12/2013
Dr. Properzi, Roberta
+49(0)208/306-2458
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Dr. Pupo, Gabriele
PhD 01/2013 - 12/2016, Postdoc 01/2016 - 01/2016
Dr. Rampalakos, Konstantinos
Postdoc, 02/2008 - 08/2010
Dr. Ratjen, Lars
PhD Student / Scientist, 10/2007 - 03/2012
Dr. Reis, Ömer
Postdoc, 04/2005 - 03/2006
Dr. Reisinger, Corinna Marie
PhD-Student, 01/2006 - 01/2010
Dr. Rios-Torres, Ramon
Postdoc, 08/2004 - 03/2006
Rippegarten, Mike
+49(0)208/306-2264
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Dr. Roy, Sutapa
Postdoc, 08/2011 - 08/2012
Rujin, Svetlana
Student Assistant, 06/2009 - 05/2011
Sadlowski, Natascha
+49(0)208/306-2454
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Scharf, Manuel
+49(0)208/306-2454
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Scheel, Franziska
Student Assistant, 10/2015 - 12/2018
Dr. Schreyer, Lucas
PhD Student 03/2014 - 09/2018, Postdoc 10/2018 - 01/2019
Schwengers, Sebastian
+49(0)208/306-2459
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Dr. Seayad, Abdul Majeed
Postdoc, 12/2003 - 11/2005
Seayad, Jayasree
AvH Stipendiat, 12/2003 - 11/2005
Dr. Shevchenko, Grigory
PhD Student, 02/2014 - 09/2018
Singh, Vikas Kumar
+49(0)208/306-2459
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Dr. Sorto, Nohemy
Postdoc, 09/2013 - 08/2015
Dr. Stadler, Michael
PhD-Student, 11/2004 - 12/2008
Sulzer-Mosse, Sarah
Doctoral Candidate, 03/2006 - 03/2008
Tan, Keng Foo
Guest Scientist 01/2015 - 07/2015
Dr. Tap, Aurélien
Postdoc 02/2014 - 04/2016
Dr. Tsui, Gavin Chit
Postdoc, 04/2013 - 01/2015
Dr. Tsuji, Nobuya
PhD Student 09/2014 - 09/2018, Postdoc 10/2018 - 01/2019
Turberg, Mathias
+49(0)208/306-2454
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Dr. van Gemmeren, Manuel
PhD Student 01/2011 - 11/2014 & scientific staff 12/2014 - 02/2015
van Thienen, Hendrik
+49(0)208/306-2440
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Dr. Varseev, Georgy
Postdoc, 10/2009 - 09/2012
Dr. Vellalath, Sreekumar
Postdoc, 03/2008 - 11/2010
Dr. Vignola, Nicola
Postdoc, 07/2003 - 12/2004
Vlaar, Tjostil
Guest Scientist, 02/2010 - 08/2010
Wagner, Lucas
Apprentice, 09/2018 - 11/2019
Dr. Wakchaure, Vijay
+49(0)208/306-2440
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Walkamp, Pascal
Apprentice / Technician, 09/2005 - 08/2012
Dr. Wang, Quinggang
Postdoc, 03/2011 - 03/2015
Dr. Wang, Xingwang
Postdoc, 09/2005 - 08/2008
Dr. Webber, Matthew
Postdoc, 04/2010 - 10/2012
Wedemann, Petra
+49(0)208/306-2262
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Dr. Xie, Youwei
Postdoc, 01/15 - 01/18
Dr Yang, Jung-Woon
Postdoc, 10/2003 - 09/2006; Research Assistant, 10/2006 - 01/2009
Yasukawa, Naoki
guest scientist, 10/2018 - 03/2019
Dr. Zhang, Pinglu
+49(0)208/306-2457
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Dr. Zhang, Zhipeng
Scientific staff, 03/2011 - 02/2014
Dr. Zhou, Hui
+49(0)208/306-2458
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Dr Zhou, Jian
Postdoc, 10/2005 - 09/2008
Dr. Zhu, Chendan
+49(0)208/306-2440
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Zumbansen, Kristina
PhD-Student, 10/2006 - 10/2010
Zwerschke, Alexander
+49(0)208/306-2458
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