Our first preprint is available on ChemRxiv! Congratulations to Liam, who carried out this work under truly challenging conditions, as well as Rachael and Andrew who provided valuable validation studies.
Deuterated compounds find important applications in drug discovery programmes and biomolecular analysis, as well as providing fundamental insight during methodology development. In this manuscript we develop a deuteration strategy with programmable regioselectivity, allowing access to indoles with selective isotope incorporation at C2, or C3, or C2-and-C3 without the need for directing groups. The preprint is available here: Undirected, Pd-catalysed deuteration of indoles with programmable regioselectivity

Lay summary: Compounds containing carbon-deuterium bonds find important applications in drug discovery programmes, as well as providing fundamental insight during the development of new chemical reactions. Selectively incorporating deuterium at one particular position in a molecule can require long processes with several steps and expensive reagents. In this manuscript, we show how to create these selective carbon-deuterium bonds using a short route with mild, catalytic methods. We hope that this method will find application in the development of new pharmaceuticals, and spark further new discoveries.