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.

Registration is now open for the RSC Organic Chemistry Community Midlands Regional Meeting at the University of Nottingham on 24th April 2025. The meeting is free to attend, but registration is required. To register, and for more information, please visit: https://www.rsc.org/events/detail/79680/rsc-organic-division-midlands-regional-meeting-2025
Please share this information with any colleagues, researchers, students and others who may be interested in the event.

The meeting will showcase synthetic chemistry (organic, chemical biology, medicinal) from across the Midlands region. Confirmed speakers include RSC MSD prize winner Prof. Matthew Powner (UCL), Dr Lona Alkhalaf (University of Warwick), Dr Andrey Antonchick (Nottingham Trent University), Prof. Liam Ball (University of Nottingham), Dr Stephen Fielden (University of Birmingham), and Dr Rebecca Ruscoe (Keele University), with a full programme to follow shortly.

The meeting will include a poster session, with entries encouraged from PhD students, postdocs and early career researchers. Researchers who would like to present a poster are asked to submit a short abstract (1 page maximum including a graphical abstract) through the conference website.

Congratulations to Andrew on his first 1st author PhD paper, published in Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry today! Through the correlation of structural x-ray diffraction data and differential scanning calorimetry / thermogravimetric analysis, Andrew found interesting structure-stability correlations in phosphorus iodonium ylids. We hope that the insights gained from this study will stimulate the design of new hypervalent iodine compounds, expanding the functionalisation reactions currently available through these useful reagents in organic synthesis. Special thanks to our XRD expert Stephen and our collaborator Coby, whose expertise in thermal analysis was instrumental in bringing this project together.

For a link to the paper in Beilstein JOC, click here: https://www.beilstein-journals.org/bjoc/articles/20/245

A ChemRxiv preprint of this work is available here: https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/66d00fd4a4e53c4876f7d17b

We have a postdoctoral position available working on deuteration methodology for the synthesis of medical imaging agents (MRI).
Start date: asap. End date: 31 March 2025. Application deadline: 13 September 2024.

For more information and to apply, go to: https://jobs.nottingham.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx?ref=SCI346924

Team HVI brought a dose of hypervalent iodine chemistry to the recent Symposia at the University of Nottingham. Andrew and Charlotte presented their work at the Postgraduate Symposium and Suman spoke at the Dan Eley Postdoctoral Symposium. Both symposia were a great celebration of the research carried out in the department and led to fruitful scientific discussions.

The students in our sustainable chemistry EPSRC/SFI Doctoral Training Centre successfully defended their PhD project proposals at the annual “Dragons’ Den” event last week. Well done to Maria, Ishbel, James and the entire Cohort 10!

We present a new method for the 2,2-difluoroethylation of sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen pronucleophiles via a hypervalent iodine strategy in Angewandte Chemie today. We were able to generate (2,2-difluoroethyl)(aryl)iodonium triflate in situ and apply it to the electrophilic 2,2-difluoroethylation of heteroatom nucleophiles, including the drugs Captopril, Normorphine and Mefloquine. Competing alpha– and beta-elimination reactions are supressed by expedient choice of stabilising co-ligands and solvent. Congratulations to all the authors, Suman, Charlotte McI, Andrew, Charlotte S, and Stephen!

For a link to the paper in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., click here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/anie.202410954

A ChemRxiv preprint of this work is available here: https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/6667f4a4e7ccf7753a7ce502