Chemical Communications Blog

A warm congratulations to Stefano Cinti for publishing his first independent research article in ChemComm. Be sure to read Stefano’s #ChemComm1st article ‘Merging office/filter paper-based tools for pre-concentring and detecting heavy metals in drinking water‘ in our collection, ChemComm Milestones – First Independent Articles.

We recently caught up with Stefano to find out about his experience as a first-time author. Read about it in our interview below. 

What are the main areas of research in your lab and what motivated you to take this direction?
The main areas are biosensors, smart materials and sustainability. I think the combination of printing technologies and nanomaterials is capable of providing people with very useful analytical tools for improving life’s quality.

Can you set this article in a wider context?
This article represents a general and simple approach for improving decentralized analysis and to strengthen the concept of citizen science.

What do you hope your lab can achieve in the coming year?
I hope my lab, the uninanobiosensors lab, would be able to generate smart solutions for everyone needs monitoring something, in all contexts.

Describe your journey to becoming an independent researcher.
I was fortunate to work in the laboratory of Prof. Palleschi and Prof. Moscone at University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. They gave me all the fundamentals on biosensors and analytical chemistry, always supported me and allowed to spend time abroad. This gave me a wider, international perspective.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
I think the best advice has been given by observing my labmates at UCSD in the group of Joe Wang. I was a visiting PhD student, and it was clear that to make excellent research you just need your creativity and to work hard.

Why did you choose to publish in ChemComm?
It is a high-quality platform to highlight my research, and also I like the style of the journal.

Stefano Cinti is Assistant Professor at the Department of Pharmacy, University of Naples “Federico II”. He obtained a PhD in Chemical Sciences in the group headed by Prof. Giuseppe Palleschi at University of “Tor Vergata”. He leads the uninanobiosensors Lab (uninanobiosensors.com) and his research includes the development of Electrochemical (bio)sensors, Paper-Based devices, Nanomotors and Nanomaterials. He spent periods abroad in Finland, UK, USA, Germany and Spain. He published more than 45 papers on peer-reviewed journals, with H-index of 27, >2000 citations. In 2018 and 2019 he has been named Best Young Researcher in Bio-Analytical Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry, respectively (by Italian Chemical Society), and in 2020 he has been inserted in World’s Top 2% Scientists. He is in the board of the Chemical Cultural Diffusion group and of the Young Group of Italian Chemical Society. He is the Chair of AMYC-BIOMED, a multi-disciplinary conference for young chemists in the biomedical sciences. He is active in communicating science to non-specialized audience through TV shows, radio and magazine. Find Stefano on Twitter: @S_Cinti87

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We are delighted to introduce Ashlee Howarth, our latest #ChemComm1st author. Ashlee’s first independent research article was published in ChemComm in May. Her Communication ‘Synthetic approaches for accessing rare-earth analogues of UiO-66‘ has now been added to our growing collection, ChemComm Milestones – First Independent Articles. Find out more about Ashlee in our interview with her below.

Our ChemComm Milestones interview with Ashlee Howarth

What are the main areas of research in your lab and what motivated you to take this direction?
In my research lab at Concordia, we are interested in the design and synthesis of new rare-earth metal–organic frameworks comprised of multinuclear cluster nodes. We take inspiration from the field of zirconium-based MOFs – materials that I worked with extensively during my postdoctoral studies – where the vast majority of Zr-MOFs contain hexanuclear cluster nodes as building blocks. We are interested in using rare-earth metals to construct MOFs because of the possibility to generate several multinuclear rare-earth clusters (e.g., tetranuclear, hexanuclear, nonanuclear, etc) with varying geometry and connectivity. The diversity of cluster building blocks that are accessible, allows us to synthesize structures that are not as easily attainable (or not attainable at all) using other metals. We are still in the early stages of this research, but our long-term goals are to study these materials for the adsorption, catalytic breakdown, and chemical sensing of hazardous analytes.

Can you set this article in a wider context?
UiO-66 is a zirconium-based MOF that was first reported by researchers from the University of Oslo in 2008 (https://doi.org/10.1021/ja8057953). Since this initial report, there have been over 4,000 publications on the topic of UiO-66. This is because it is a highly robust MOF, built from hexanuclear zirconium clusters bridged by simple terephthalic acid linkers, and has been shown to be potentially useful for applications ranging from gas capture to catalysis to drug delivery. In this article, we report on the synthesis and characterization of eight rare-earth analogues of UiO-66, specifically the Y(III), Eu(III), Gd(III), Tb(III), Ho(III), Er(III), Tm(III), and Yb(III) analogue. We hope to see these rare-earth analogues of UiO-66 become extensively studied over the next decade, just like the Zr-based prototype.

What do you hope your lab can achieve in the coming year?
In the upcoming year, I hope that we can continue to build foundational knowledge with regards to the tips and tricks for synthesizing rare-earth cluster-based MOFs. This includes expanding on knowledge of de novo as well as post-synthetic modification techniques, purification and activation strategies, and methods for characterizing the chemical and physical properties of these new materials.

Describe your journey to becoming an independent researcher.
My journey to becoming an independent researcher began when I completed an Honours specialization project as an undergraduate student in the Corrigan lab at the University of Western Ontario. This was when I first learned about research, the possibility of graduate school, and the steps required to become an independent researcher in academia. From there my love for research, and specifically inorganic materials chemistry, continued to grow as a PhD student in the Wolf lab at the University of British Columbia. I was first introduced to MOFs during my postdoctoral studies in the Farha and Hupp groups at Northwestern University, and it was during my 3 years as a postdoc that I grew to love these materials. I was (and continue to be) fascinated by the fundamental aspects of MOF chemistry, discovering new building blocks, making new network structures, and growing crystals. I also love that MOFs have many potential practical applications due to their high porosities, surface areas, and tunable properties. As such, when finishing my postdoctoral studies I knew I wanted to continue working with MOFs – but I wanted to branch out from working with Zr-MOFs and start exploring the use of rare-earth elements. It’s been quite challenging working on a subclass of MOFs that are entirely new to me, but it’s also been very rewarding, and my students and I learn something new every day.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
It’s quite hard to choose just one piece of advice, since I have been given lots of great advice from my mentors over the years. One piece of advice that has always stuck with me, which came from my undergraduate supervisor John F. Corrigan, is to always be yourself. It sounds simple enough, but I was giving a practice presentation for my honours thesis defense and I had made pink PowerPoint slides. One of the other students in the group suggested I change the colour since pink might not be the most obvious choice for a professional scientific presentation. John told me to leave the colour if I liked it, and to always be myself. I’ve carried that advice with me throughout my scientific career and it has helped to give me confidence in myself as a scientist – even at times when I don’t always feel like I belong.

Why did you choose to publish in ChemComm?
ChemComm is a great journal with an excellent reputation in chemistry. I always wanted to publish in ChemComm when I was a graduate student but never had the opportunity. When my student, Pedro Donnarumma, was able to find the synthetic conditions necessary to make the first ever rare-earth analogues of UiO-66, I thought that ChemComm would be the perfect venue to disseminate the results quickly and have high visibility within the MOF and materials chemistry communities. I’m very proud to say that my first publication as an independent researcher is in ChemComm and I’m especially proud of the students Pedro Donnarumma (lead author, MSc graduate), Sahara Frojmovic (undergraduate Honours student), Paola Marino (MSc Student), and Hudson Bicalho (PhD candidate) who worked so hard to make it possible! The work also wouldn’t be possible without our awesome collaborator and expert crystallographer Dr. Hatem Titi.

Ashlee J. Howarth was born and raised in London, Ontario. She obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Western Ontario in 2009, and then went on to do her PhD in inorganic materials chemistry at the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Michael O. Wolf. Before joining the faculty at Concordia, she completed an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship at Northwestern University with Joseph T. Hupp and Omar K. Farha. In 2018, Ashlee was recognized by Forbes Magazine as a “30 under 30” in Science for her contributions to research in the field of wastewater treatment, and the detoxification of chemical warfare agents. In 2019, she won the UBC Chemistry Young Alumnus Award, which recognizes a young alumnus whose accomplishments are of such excellence that they provide inspiration and leadership to students and other young alumni. At Concordia, Ashlee is the Concordia University Research Chair in Metal–Organic Frameworks, and the Howarth group is focused on the design and synthesis of rare-earth metal–organic frameworks targeting applications in wastewater remediation, catalysis, and chemical sensing.

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ChemComm Milestones – Robert Godin

Robert Godin reached an exciting milestone this year when he chose to publish his first independent article in ChemComm. You can read Robert’s #ChemComm1st article ‘Experimental determination of charge carrier dynamics in carbon nitride heterojunctions‘ in our growing collection, ChemComm Milestones – First Independent Authors. We are also pleased to confirm that Robert’s significant research now features in our 2021 Emerging Investigators collection too.

To find out more about Robert’s experiences as a first-time author, watch the video interview below.

ChemComm Milestones interview with Robert Godin:

Explore more #ChemComm1st content on our Twitter: @ChemCommun

We were really excited to speak to Erli Lu about his #ChemComm1st article ‘A monomeric methyllithium complex: synthesis and structure‘. This recently published Communication is available to read in our full collection ChemComm Milestones – First Independent Articles. It’s also Open Access.

Find out about Erli and his research in our interview below.

What are the main areas of research in your lab and what motivated you to take this direction?
The main research area of my lab is group-1 and group-2 metal coordination chemistry, for example, lithium, sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium. Since my PhD, I have studied coordination chemistry of some of the most obscure metals, such as rare-earth and actinide metals. Compared to them, group-1 and 2 metal coordination chemistry are thought to be ‘well-established’. But actually, if looking closely, there are many knowledge gaps in this area. To fill these gaps, I set our research targets towards these ‘familiar strangers’.

Can you set this article in a wider context?
This article is our first step to unveil the unknown face of some of the most common chemical reagents, in this case, organolithium reagents. Organolithium, for example, butyllithium, is arguably the most important organometallic reagents, and the parent of organometallic chemistry. The vital roles of organolithium in numerous organic reactions depend on their aggregates—they exist as oligomers but are postulated to react via the monomers. Chemists want to isolate the monomers, to understand the reaction mechanisms, but this is a formidable task: the monomers are super-reactive and very easy to decompose. In this article, we isolated the first monomer of the archetypical organolithium reagent: methyllithium.

What do you hope your lab can achieve in the coming year?
More exciting complexes, of course! And more papers, for sure! We hope to change an existing prejudice held by chemists that the group-1 and 2 chemistry are not as versatile as d-block and f-block metals, just because they have been studied for over a century.

Describe your journey to becoming an independent researcher.
I decided to pursue a research career since my 2nd PhD year—when I made my first important discovery (the first scandium terminal imide) in Yaofeng’s group at SIOC. This work was published in ChemComm in 2010 and has inspired, influenced and encouraged me since then. The training of a coordination chemist is similar to a Jedi Knight for me: it’s nearly impossible to succeed without a local guru’s help and guidance. I was lucky to meet my two ‘Jedi Masters’: Prof. Yaofeng Chen and Prof. Steve Liddle, who helped me to grow into an independent researcher.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
‘Grit teeth and carry on’—It is very often (maybe too often) easy to feel frustrated, if not desperate, in a research career. But persistence will be rewarded eventually.

Why did you choose to publish in ChemComm?
I have published 4 Communications in ChemComm, including some of my most important results. From my experience, the two biggest advantages of ChemComm against competitor journals are the rapid reviewing procedure and the professional editorial teams. The handling editors of ChemComm are active academics and do the research themselves—this is very important to ensure a fair and reasonable scientific judgement about a manuscript. Another reason to publish in ChemComm is supporting our local Chemical Society—though it is a less popular practice nowadays than before.

Erli Lu was born in Hefei, China, in 1984. His university degree (BEng) was awarded in 2006 by Tianjin Polytechnic University (China) in Polymer Material Science and Engineering. He joined Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC), Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2006, studying rare-earth metal coordination chemistry in the Yaofeng Chen group and was awarded the PhD in 2012. In the same year, he moved to the UK as a postdoc researcher with an EU Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship to join the Steve Liddle group at the University of Nottingham, investigating actinide coordination chemistry. He had stayed in the Liddle group at Nottingham and Manchester from 06.2012-09.2019, before starting his independent career at Newcastle University, as a Newcastle University Academic Track (NUAcT) Fellow. Erli’s group at Newcastle investigates new aspects of group-1 & 2 metal coordination chemistry, including new highly reactive organolithium complexes, low-valent group-1/2 complexes, and their applications in catalysis and energy storage. Find Erli on Twitter: @erli_lu

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Congratulations to Pei-Xi Wang who has published his #ChemComm1st article ‘Lyotropic Liquid Crystalline Phases of Anisotropic Nanoparticles of Organic-Inorganic Metal Halide Perovskites: Photoluminescence from Self-Assembled Ordered Microstructures of Semiconductors‘ within the last month. We recently spoke to Pei-Xi about his experiences as a first-time independent author. Find out more in our interview below.

What are the main areas of research in your lab and what motivated you to take this direction?
Motivated by the charming microscopic orderliness of liquid crystalline phases, which provides a relatively simple and controllable bottom-up biomimetic approach to various fascinating hierarchical structures existing in plants and animals, we decided to focus on the development of novel lyotropic liquid crystals as well as the fabrication of functional composite nanomaterials based on them. Currently, we are trying to build a general synthesis method that can transform different types of organic-inorganic metal halide perovskites into colloidal liquid crystalline mesogens, and to further use these semiconducting soft anisotropic materials in optoelectronic devices.

Can you set this article in a wider context?
The functionalization of many types of conventional colloidal liquid crystalline mesogens, such as vanadium pentoxide nanoribbons, polypeptides, and cellulose nanocrystals is usually difficult, i.e., it is hard to endow them with specific energy band gaps or other desired physical properties by chemical modification. In this article, the feasibility of synthesizing mesogenic nanoparticles of organic-inorganic metal halide perovskites has been proven, as metal halide perovskites are a class of materials with excellent structural and compositional diversity, it would be possible to systematically develop a large family of colloidal lyotropic liquid crystals with semiconductivity, luminescence, ferroelectricity, magnetism, chirality, or other preferred features.

What do you hope your lab can achieve in the coming year?
Since late March, my first two graduate students, Ting-Ting Zhou and Cai-Yun Zhao have started to work in the lab. In the coming year, I hope they can find their real research interests either in the field of lyotropic liquid crystalline materials, where I would be able to support them with the experience and knowledge I have gathered during my Ph.D. and postdoctoral studies, or in any other fields attracting them or fortunately initiated by themselves, where they can enjoy the exciting process of making new discoveries every day.

Describe your journey to becoming an independent researcher.
From 2007 to 2009, when I was a student in Henan Experimental High School, I learned a lot of classical and modern physics for the Chinese Physics Olympiad, during which time I was strongly attracted by the conciseness of physical principles such as the Maxwell equations. However, I did not have a clear understanding of scientific research until the completion of my first project under the supervision of Prof. Mark J. MacLachlan (I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Vitor M. Zamarion for his kind help with that project). There was a moment when I accidentally realized that the circular dichroism signal of a chiral nematic mesoporous silica film filled with a Prussian blue analogue should be the product of the absorption and CD spectra of the unfilled film, which was for the first time I noticed that there might be some interesting mathematical relationships behind the seemingly tedious experimental data. From then on, I learned how to build a comprehensive view of the materials and physical phenomena involved in my studies, and started to enjoy the hunt for undiscovered phenomena in the jungle of my experiments.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
It would be a Chinese saying “吾生也有涯, 而知也无涯, 以有涯随无涯, 殆已”, which means “my lifespan is limited, while knowledge is infinite, spending my limited time on pursuing unlimited knowledge is harmful”.

Why did you choose to publish in ChemComm?
In the past several years, I have been inspired by many classical research articles published in ChemComm, therefore I believe that ChemComm is a great journal for rapidly reporting new chemical discoveries with clear scientific significance and authenticity.

Dr. Pei-Xi Wang was born in China in September 1992. He received his B.Sc. in chemistry from Jilin University in July 2014. He then moved to Vancouver in August 2014 to pursue a Ph.D. and completed his doctorate in chemistry at the University of British Columbia in October 2018, where under the supervision of Prof. Mark J. MacLachlan, he studied the structures and transformation of chiral nematic liquid crystalline tactoidal microphases of cellulose nanocrystals by scanning electron microscopy. Afterwards, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the MacLachlan group at UBC (2019/01-2019/12) and in the Edward H. Sargent group at the University of Toronto (2020/01-2020/11). Pei-Xi started his independent research as an associate professor in early December 2020 at the Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he focuses on the development of colloidal lyotropic liquid crystals of semiconducting organic-inorganic metal halide perovskites.

Read Pei-Xi’s #ChemComm1st article and others in our growing collection, ChemComm Milestones – First Independent Article. Follow us on Twitter for all of the latest #ChemCommMilestones news.