Chemical Communications Blog

If you haven’t heard already, we are speaking to first-time independent researchers who have chosen to publish their first article with ChemComm. This week, we spoke to Amie E. Norton who recently published her #ChemComm1st article: Phase transformation induced mechanochromism in a platinum salt: a tale of two polymorphs. 

Find out more from Amie below:

What are the main areas of research in your lab and what motivated you to take this direction?
I work as a Research Chemist at the USDA-ARS. As a Research Chemist at the USDA, I work in the grain quality laboratory. One focus of my research is to synthesize new materials (such as nanomaterials) out of the grain. The motivation to take the research in this direction was that I realized I could use my expertise in a new field, thus merging my Ph.D and the new job I was hired to do. The other focus of my research is to design rapid testing of grain products to measure biochemical components to ensure grain quality. I work under Dr. Michael Tilley to accomplish our research program goals under National Plan 306. Rapid testing of materials to measure biochemical components to ensure grain quality falls under this plan.

Can you set this article in a wider context?
I worked in vapochromic sensors, anion sensors and mechanochromic materials. Our end goal was to design rapid testing methods for anions in drinking water and to have a fundamental understanding on these vapochromic materials. These materials were Pt(II) square planar materials that would change colours when the environment around them changed. They would change colours when introduced to a certain anion or vapor. The complexes were stacking Pt(II) complexes, when the complexes were yellow, they would stack in a dimer or monomer orientation, such as a Pt…Pt…Pt orientation of short…long distances. When the Pt complexes were red, they stacked in a linear chain the Pt…Pt…Pt orientation was short…short distances. The surprising thing is that the Pt(II) complex was often selective in anion sensing to just one anion. The selectivity was built into the complex. I was interested in nitrate as a sensing anion so I decided to play around with adding nitric acid to see if adding a proton helps with the anion exchange with the complex going from yellow to red (understanding the role of pH in the anion exchange). I stumbled on this mechanochromic behaviour and then I grew crystals out of nitric acid (pH 1) and acetone. We went to mount the crystals and they started to change when we touched them with a mounting loop. I knew that structural determination of both of the crystalline forms of mechanochromic material were rare as long range order is often lost in the material after the mechanochromic event. I decided to study this behaviour. It turned out to be one of the most interesting projects, but the discovery of the material was serendipitous.

Describe your journey to becoming independent researcher.
I received a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of Missouri (Mizzou). During my time at Mizzou, I studied abroad twice, once in London and once in a two week business class in Prague and Vienna. I also minored in Religious Studies and Sociology; I find that we need to be well-rounded in science. I completed a Ph.D at the University of Cincinnati in 2017 where I worked on vapochromic and anion sensors. My Ph.D taught me how to conduct research, and I mentored 30 undergraduates in the lab setting during this time. I feel it’s important to share knowledge and mentor the next group of future scientists.

Afterwards, I worked at NIOSH (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health) and learned Real-time Sensing Methods. I helped build a robot out of a Roomba vacuum to survey a room for chemical hazards. Next, I worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Bowling Green State University from 2018-2019 working on photo-active materials. I now work for the USDA-ARS as a Research Chemist (2019-present). Currently, I am working on developing new materials out of grain. My current position has allowed me to learn many aspects of grain research. While I came in with little knowledge of the entire process, I am now able to contribute knowledge from my other areas of study and apply them to my current job. The process of getting grain from the field to our tables is actually a very involved process which I’m proud to be a part of. One thing in my career I have always done is welcome a challenge and take the opportunity to learn new skills as they might be needed in my future work.

What is the best piece of advice you have been given?
There are two pieces of advice that I’ve been given that I always try to follow. My parent’s advice growing up was to have “humble confidence”. The definition of “humble confidence” is to be confident without being arrogant, and to be modest while still projecting competence. The other piece of advice I received was from my Ph.D advisor. He taught me that in research when you see something unusual, most people want to run away from it. Make that unusual more dramatic by designing an experiment to figure out what caused it. Some of the most interesting discoveries are found by the unusual. Do not run away from it, instead become more inquisitive about it.

Why did you choose to publish in ChemComm?
ChemComm has a good reputation. The communication fit well with ChemComm. I felt like the information should be a rapid communication.

#ChemCommMilestones

Hemant Joshi recently published his first independent research article with ChemComm. We wanted to celebrate this exciting milestone by finding out more about Hemant and his research. Check out his #ChemComm1st article: Selenium coordinated palladium(II) trans-dichloride molecular rotor as catalyst for site selective annulation of 2‐arylimidazo[1,2‐a]pyridines

What are the main areas of research in your lab and what motivated you to take this direction?
We are a young research group who started in July 2019. Our research group mainly works on two different research areas: molecular rotors chemistry and homogenous catalysis by pincer complexes. We are trying to develop new and better catalysts for site-selective catalysis. The main motivation behind choosing these fields is my early training as a chemist in homogeneous catalysis and the interesting yet challenging chemistry associated with these fields.

Can you set this article in a wider context?
Our article describes first synthesis of a new class of intramolecular secondary interactions (SeCH…Cl) controlled molecular rotors having Cl−Pd−Cl rotor attached to Se−Pd−Se axle. These molecular rotors showed low rotational barriers which is essential for these molecular machines. The rotor was used as a catalyst for annulation of 2‐arylimidazo[1,2‐a]pyridines. The molecular rotor catalyst was designed in such a way that phenyl ring of ligand is involved in CH−π interactions with 2‐arylimidazo[1,2‐a]pyridines, which interestingly leads to revers regioselective annulated product which is otherwise challenging to obtain.

What do you hope your lab can achieve in the coming year?
Currently, the main focus is to build my independent research profile at CuRaj and to extend the possible network of collaborations to explore more challenging problems in the future. Our group’s main focus is to develop unidirectional molecular rotors with low rotational barriers.

Describe your journey to becoming independent researcher.
Since my early academic days, I was more inclined towards experimental chemistry which was the main driving force for me to choose a chemistry major during my masters. As a PhD research scholar, I joined Dr. Ajai K. Singh’s lab at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. My doctoral work was mainly focused on synthesis of new air stable metal complexes and metal chalcogenide nanoparticles for catalytic organic synthesis. To further strengthen my training as a chemist and to gain interdisciplinary research experiences, I started my post-doctoral research in Prof. John A. Gladysz’s laboratory at the Texas A&M University, College Station, USA. In Dr. Gladysz’s lab I was introduced to the beautiful word of molecular gyroscopes. Training with both of my previous advisors helped me to learn about how research labs function, and how to carry out projects and run the lab. The training from these labs built the foundation of my independent research which I would like to take up at CuRaj.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
The two best pieces of advice which helped me are from my parents and my research advisor. The first: to be a better human being and help others which helped in my personal life. The second which was useful in my professional career: run behind solving problems and not high impact factors.

Why did you choose to publish in ChemComm?
ChemComm is renowned journal known to publish interdisciplinary research with urgency. Our research group is glad to start with ChemComm.

Dr. Hemant Joshi is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Central University of Rajasthan (CuRaj), India. Hemant obtained his undergraduate (BSc) degree in chemistry from University of Rajasthan, India (2008) and master’s degree from Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur, India (2010). After completing his master’s degree, Hemant joined the PhD program at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India in 2010. His thesis work with Prof. Ajai K. Singh was focused on synthesis of new air stable metal complexes and metal chalcogenide nanoparticles for catalytic organic synthesis. In early 2016, Hemant joined the laboratory of Prof. John A. Gladysz at the Texas A&M University, College Station, USA. In his post-doctoral research work, he was engaged in building new molecular gyroscopes with large cage sizes and understanding their rotational behaviors. Hemant moved back to India in August 2018, and joined BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus, as DST Inspire faculty. In July 2019, Hemant started his independent research career at Central University of Rajasthan. Find him on Twitter: @hkjiitd

Marco Di Antonio recently published his first independent research article with ChemComm. We wanted to celebrate this exciting milestone by finding out more about Marco and his research. Check out his #ChemComm1st article: A short peptide that preferentially binds c-MYC G-quadruplex DNA

What are the main areas of research in your lab and what motivated you to take this direction?

My group is interested in developing chemical and biological tools to underpin key chemical and structural changes that DNA undergoes during ageing and diseases development. I have always been fascinated by the relevance of DNA in biology, and to apply fundamental chemistry knowledge to unravel the mysteries behind DNA biology. Indeed, I have been working within this research framework pretty much during my entire career. What attracted me the most to this research topic is the idea that human genomic DNA, which is around 2 meters long, is compacted in a volume of few m2 in a cell. The 3-dimensional architecture that DNA adopts when compacting within a cell nucleus, as well as the chemical modifications that it undergoes to achieve compaction, are key to biological processes such as cell-differentiation, ageing and cancer development. Therefore, we are very interested in understanding what is the role of chemistry and chemical modifications in DNA compaction.

Although we have distinct research projects currently ongoing in my group, they are all aimed at developing chemical biology tools to unravel the fundamental mechanisms that regulate DNA structural dynamics in the context of ageing and diseases, such as cancer. We are particularly interested in non-helical structures that DNA can adopt, and we combine chemistry and biology to investigate how the formation of such non-canonical DNA structures affect human biology.

Can you set this article in a wider context?

It has been almost 70 years since the DNA double-helical structure was described for the first time. Since then, several other DNA structures have been reported. Amongst those, G-quadruplexes have emerged as a stable alternative to the double-helix due to their thermodynamic and kinetic stability. Increasing evidence supports G-quadruplex formation in the context of living cells; therefore, developing chemical tools to target these structures against the canonical DNA double helix is essential.

Several molecules that target selectively G-quadruplexes already exists, but there is a chemical need to develop new probes that can target one individual G-quadruplex over the ~700,000 that can form in the human genome. This will allow us to investigate the biology regulated by the targeted G-quadruplex structure and disentangle it from the other G-quadruplexes present in the genome. In this manuscript, we describe a short-peptide that displays preferential selectivity for the G-quadruplex structure present in the promoter region of the oncogene MYC and negligible biding towards other G-quadruplex structures. This has a double impact in the context of G-quadruplex biology: i) it provides a starting point to the design novel peptide-based probes to target specifically other G-quadruplexes besides MYC ii) it will allow biological investigation of the role(s) played by the stabilisation of MYC G-quadruplex, which is relevant in the context of cancer treatment.

What do you hope your lab can achieve in the coming year?
Publishing our first research paper has already been an incredible achievement, considering this has happened a bit more than just a year after starting my group and in the middle of a pandemic! For this, I am particularly thankful to Andrew Jamieson and his PhD student Danielle Morgan who have collaborated with us on this project and have been extremely supportive. For the coming year, it would be great to close a couple of projects that we have currently ongoing but it is a bit too early to predict this! My group started only with a PhD student (Denise Liano) and a PDRA (Aisling Minard), to whom I am very grateful for their relentless work, and we have already come a long way so keeping this trajectory for the next year would be great. We will be expanding in October with two new PhD students joining the team, so I really look forward the vibrant scientific environment that we are establishing within the group, which is helping my creativity significantly!

Describe your journey to becoming independent researcher.

The journey to become an independent academic is not an easy one, I would lie if I said the opposite. But this does not mean that is impossible, and I would encourage anyone reading this to try without even thinking about giving up a single time, if they really want to become independent researchers.

Personally, I have studied for my MSci in Chemistry in Pavia University (2007) and continued for a PhD in Padua University (2011). During my PhD, I almost exclusively worked in a synthetic chemistry laboratory, where I developed some novel G-quadruplex binding small-molecules. After getting my PhD, I was lucky enough to get a postdoctoral offer from Cambridge University to work in the group of Prof. Sir. Shankar Balasubramanian. I have been working in Shankar’s group as a Research Associate for 4 years and then as a Senior Research Associate for 3 more years. My time in Cambridge has been scientifically transformative, I have been moving from synthetic chemistry to biochemistry, cell-biology and genomics. The amount of new skills developed and the extremely intellectually challenging environment that characterises Shankar’s group have been key to develop independent thinking and to start my academic career. It has allowed me to develop a comprehensive view of nucleic acids chemistry and biology that now is at the foundation of my research group.

In December 2017, BBSRC awarded me a David Phillips Fellowship which I have used to start my group at Imperial College Chemistry. Although my research is still very much focused on the chemical biology of nucleic acids, I felt that moving to Imperial has been key to establish my research group in a new environment that is helping me to flourish as an independent scientist.

During my last 3 years of postdoc I started to apply for independent positions, and I am not afraid to share that I failed most of those applications both for fellowships and lectureships. So, my two key pieces of advice to anyone who wants to become independent researcher are: i) give yourself plenty time to make the transition, it will take at least 1 year from applying for a fellowship to get it, even if you get the first one you apply for! So, don’t wait until the end of your contract before giving it a shot; ii) Expect to fail! This is totally normal, and you shouldn’t take it personally, but rather learn from mistakes and improve your applications!

What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
The best piece of advice I have been given is from my former post-doc supervisor Prof Sir Shankar Balasubramanian, who always told me: “less is more”. It sounds like a very simple sentence, but as scientists we always tend to overcomplicate things and add extra experiments or extra information in our papers. Being able to disentangle key experiments from non-essential ones, as well as writing up a research paper with the least possible amount of words and jargon, is an essential skill that every scientist needs to keep working on. This is by far the best piece of advice I ever received, and I apply it every time that I design experiments with my group members, or when I write a paper!

Why did you choose to publish in ChemComm?
This is partially connected to my answer for the question above. I love publishing scientific research in the form of a communication, as it forces you to distil out essential and important information from what can be described in more details in supplementary information. Beside the format, ChemComm allows me to quickly and effectively disseminate important proof-of-concept experiments that can be transformative for the chemical community. For us, the findings of a short peptide that shows potential for selective recognition of an individual G-quadruplex were novel and essential to be disseminated quickly. Therefore, I had no hesitation to select ChemComm as a platform to present our first paper. Furthermore, I published with Chem Comm during my post-doc and I was impressed by the quick turnaround of the editors and the smooth submission portal, so it was a very easy decision for us!

Marco obtained his MSci degree in Organic Chemistry from University of Pavia in 2007 and moved to Padua University for his Ph.D in Molecular Sciences under the supervision of Prof. Manlio Palumbo and Prof. Mauro Freccero. Marco obtained his PhD in 2011 and moved to the UK to join Cambridge University. At Cambridge, he worked in the group of Prof. Sir. Shankar Balasubramanian, where he started a scientific transition from synthetic organic chemistry to molecular and cell biology. This scientific approach across boundaries is embedded in his research group that works at the interface between chemistry and biology. In December 2017 Marco was awarded a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship, which enabled him to move to Imperial College Chemistry to start his research group.