Chemical Communications Blog

Based at Nottingham University in the UK, Jason Camp’s research group focuses on developing mild, sustainable and environmentally friendly synthetic methods for forming added-value compounds from simple starting materials. Specifically, the group are interested in multifaceted catalysis, which is the ability of one metal to catalyse multiple unique processes in a reaction sequence.  

Why not read Jason Camp’s latest ChemComm publication on ‘Gold-Catalysed Rearrangement of O-Vinyl Oximes for the Synthesis of Highly Substituted Pyrroles’? It will be free to access until the 14th February, 2011.

If you would like to find out more about Jason and his research, then please visit the Camp Research Group website for further information.

Based at Tsinghua University in China, Yanbin Huang’s group works at the interface between polymer science and pharmaceutical science, specifically on synthetic polymers as the active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), drug-polymer conjugates, and drug/polymer solid dispersions.

Why not read Yanbin Huang’s latest ChemComm publication on ‘Toward the synthesis of sequence-controlled vinyl copolymers’? It will be free to access until the 5th of January, 2011. 

Yanbin Huang

Yanbin took some time out from his research to answer a few questions for us…  

What initially inspired you to become a scientist? 

I wanted to become a professor since I learned there was such a profession, probably attracted by its freedom and intellectual excitement, but also because five other family members had been teachers. Later on in college, I found out that research was part of being a professor, and found that I enjoyed discovering and creating new things as well as teaching what i’d learned. 

What was your motivation behind the work described in your ChemComm article? 

Our paper is about a strategy to synthesise vinyl copolymers with monomer-level sequence control. I was trained as a polymer scientist at Tsinghua University and always found it tempting to unify the synthetic and biological macromolecules into one coherent polymer science, with the only difference between them being to what extent we can control the sequence of the chain structure. I started dreaming about sequence-controlled vinyl copolymers in 2000 when I was still a PhD student in Professor Peppas’ group at Purdue, and in the summer of 2009 I finally figured out the working strategy to do this. 

Why did you choose ChemComm to publish your work? 

For its large and diverse readership and great reputation in chemical science. 

Where do you see your research heading next? 

The detailed chemistry still needs improvement. For example, the yield of each synthesis cycle should be higher than 95% to make it practical for a long polymer chain.  I hope our results so far have shown that this mono-addition followed by transformation strategy works and more groups will start working on these problems (there are already several great groups, including Professors Sawamoto and Kamigaito in Japan, and Professor Lutz in Europe, who are working on sequence-control vinyl copolymer synthesis). Afterwards, we can study the vinyl copolymers similar to proteins, i.e., to design its sequence, synthesise it, and then investigate its physics and biological activities. 

What do enjoy doing in your spare time? 

Reading books, watching movies, taking long walks and having dinner with my family and friends. 

If you could not be a scientist, but could be anything else, what would you be? 

I actually had serious plans to become a movie director like Ingmar Bergman and Hsiao-Hsien Hou. 

So, ‘that’s a wrap’ from Yanbin Huang, but if you fancy reading more about his research and the communication he discusses (recently published in ChemComm), then download the article today, which is free to access until the New Year (5th January)!

Ross Denton

Ross took some time out from his research to answer a few questions for us… 

What inspired you to become a scientist? 

I was interested in science and how things worked from an early age. I spent a lot of time taking things apart when I was young. During my chemistry degree I spent a year working at AstraZeneca where I read books on natural product synthesis in the library; I also began to read chemistry journals and was amazed at the complexity of the structures that were being made by organic chemists and at the creativity that is possible in synthesis. I knew then that I wanted to do a PhD in organic chemistry and work in this field. Later on, after completing my PhD, I was fortunate enough to work for K.C. Nicolaou – the author (along with Eric Sorensen) of one of the books about synthesis I had read as an undergraduate. I became a scientist because I wanted a job where I could pursue my own ideas to solve problems and hopefully develop something useful. 

What was the motivation behind the work described in you ChemComm article? 

Phosphorus reagents are used in synthetic chemistry labs around the world on a daily basis. Indeed, most organic chemists are familiar with the Wittig, Mitsunobu and Appel reactions. Despite being very useful these reactions all have one big drawback, namely, the generation of phosphine oxides as stoichiometric by-products. This means that the reactions cannot be easily used on a large scale and most of the time chromatography is necessary to separate the product from the phosphine oxide by-product. We want to solve the phosphine oxide problem by developing phosphine oxide-catalysed versions of these reactions – turning the by-product into the catalyst for the reactions. The work described in the paper is the first catalytic chlorination of alcohols under Appel conditions and is the proof-of-concept for a range of catalytic phosphorus reactions we are working on. Here triphenylphosphine oxide, the stoichiometric by-product formed in the classical version of the reaction, is used as a catalyst for the chlorination reaction. The result is a mild chlorination reaction and 90 % less triphenylphosphine oxide to remove from the product at the end. 

Why did you choose ChemComm to publish your work? 

Due to its fast publication times, broad readership and high impact factor. 

Where do you see your research heading next? 

We are now building on the results in the paper to develop other catalytic halogenation reactions and are also working on catalytic versions of several more of the most important phosphorus-mediated transformations such as the Wittig and Mitsunobu reactions. We hope that ultimately our research will help to eliminate phosphorus waste resulting in cleaner chemical synthesis. 

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? 

Spending time with my wife and son. 

If you could not be a scientist but could be anything else what would you be? 

A mountaineer or rock climber.

If you have had a recent ChemComm publication and are interested in featuring on the ‘meet our authors’ website, then please get in touch with us at the ChemComm editorial office.