Looking for a PhD position? Look no further! We are recruiting motivated PhD candidates through the Nottingham EPSRC CDT in Resilient Chemistry. Click on the link to find out more about the ReaCT research theme (Resilient Catalytic Strategies for Transformative Technologies), or get in touch at miriam.oduill(at)nottingham.ac.uk.

Application deadline: 21 November 2025. (Interviews: early December 2025)

I deeply regret that due to current funding limitations, we are only able to accept applications from Home students at this time in accordance with current UKRI guidance.

Ishbel presented her fluorine-18 labelled amino acids (work done in collaboration with Helen Betts, NUH) at the UK PET Chemistry Meeting in Glasgow earlier this month.

And Charlotte showed med chemists at the EFMC Symposium in Porto how useful hypervalent iodine can be.

Last week, we said farewell to Suman, who is embarking on a Marie Curie Fellowship with Prof. Manuel Orlandi at the University of Padova. Suman achieved the first breakthrough in hypervalent iodine chemistry in our group with the difluoroethylation of heteroatom nucleophiles, resulting in a 1st author paper in Angewandte Chemie. More recently, he laid the groundwork for an exciting follow-up project (watch this space!) Suman will be missed in the lab, and we wish him all the best in Italy!

Kudos to the group for designing a snow globe for him featuring the Carbon Neutral Laboratory, to remember his time in Nottingham by.

Congratulations Dr Greener!
Andrew successfully passed his viva yesterday, becoming the first member of the O’Duill group to graduate with a PhD from the University of Nottingham. Andrew gained fundamental insights into the structure and stability of hypervalent iodine compounds during his PhD, which allowed him to develop new alkylation reagents. He single-handedly set up our lab in the middle of a pandemic and laid the groundwork for many of the projects currently ongoing in the group. Thank you for your hard work Andrew!

Miriam has just returned form an excellent trip to China, where she attended the 8th International Conference on Hypervalent Iodine Chemistry in Tianjin and completed a seminar tour at ICCAS, Tsinghua University and Peking University in Beijing. It was a pleasure to meet up with old friends and make new ones over great food and exciting chemistry.

Suman had a great experience at the 25th Tetrahedron Symposium in Bruges, where he presented his work and made new connections.

Charlotte will soon be heading to the EFMC International Symposium on Advances in Synthetic and Medicinal Chemistry in Porto to present her work. Watch this space for photos coming soon.

The sun came out to celebrate the team’s recent successes. Congratulations to Suman on his prestigious Marie Curie fellowship, Andrew for submitting his PhD thesis, and Sim and Josh for finishing their MSci exams! It also gave us the opportunity to show Aaron, who is currently visiting from Newcastle University, the Robin Hood statue and Nottingham pubs.

The RSC Organic Chemistry Community Midlands Regional Meeting 2025 took place at the University of Nottingham on 24^th April 2025. 150 attendants came together in a great event that showcased science from across the Midlands and beyond and – once again – demonstrated a tangible sense of community and support.

Talks from Lona Alkhalaf (Warwick), Andrey Antonchick (Nottingham Trent), Liam Ball (Nottingham), Stephen Fielden (Birmingham), Christopher McPherson (Sygnature Discovery), Matthew Powner (UCL), Rebecca Ruscoe (Keele), and Joshua Smalley (Leicester) spanned synthetic, biological, materials and medicinal chemistry, as well as science outreach. The atmosphere during the breaks was buzzing with participants engaging with the 26 poster presenters, discussing science, and networking. Prizes for best poster went to Thomas Ball (Liverpool), Charlotte McIvor (Nottingham), and Denis Hartmann (Birmingham).

The conference culminated in the award of the RSC 2024 Organic Chemistry mid-career MSD Prize to Prof. Matthew Powner for pioneering work on the prebiotic synthesis of essential biomolecules including amino acids, peptides and co-factors.

As a free-to-attend event, the whole thing would not have been possible without the generous support of our sponsors, and I would like to thank Asynt, CEM, Chromatography Direct, Dixon Science, Radleys, RSC East Midlands Section, RSC Organic Chemistry Community, Sygnature Discovery and Teledyne for their sponsorship.

A big thank you also to Lorraine for her help organising this event, as well as Charlotte, Emilie, Ephraim, Ishbel, James, James, Olly, and Rory for ensuring everything ran smoothly on the day.

Looking forward to seeing you at next year’s event!

We have a postdoctoral position available working on the design and synthesis of new hypervalent iodine reagents.
Start date: on or around 1 July 2025 (and no later than 1 September 2025). Duration: 1 year. Application deadline: 19 May 2025.
For more information and to apply, go to: https://jobs.nottingham.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?ref=SCI138525

Thanks to Jonathan Hirst and a CNL infrastructure fund, the O’Duill group has been kitted out with a brand new suite of computers and has entered the era of electronic lab notebooks (AI4Green).

Our annual group hike took us out to Bradgate Park yesterday. The dogs (and some of the group members) were able to burn off excess energy, while the rest of us enjoyed a leisurely walk. The fog soon lifted, and we ended the trip in a warm, sunny beer garden. Thank you to Ishbel and Olly for organising this one! It was a lot of fun.