We had a great group outing together with the Denton lab on Friday. The weather was perfect for a hike at the edge of the Peak District, with a stop for fish & chips at lunch.

Miriam has been selected as one of the winners of the Thieme Chemistry Journal Awards 2024.

The award honours promising early-career researchers in the areas of chemical synthesis and catalysis. It is a great recognition of the exciting work the O’Duill group has carried out in the areas of transition metal catalysis and hypervalent iodine chemistry.

Find out more about our work in the O’Duill group, our research philosophy and how to join us (e.g. for a one-year MRes) in this video.

We were very lucky to have two excellent undergraduate researchers join our group this summer.
Charlotte Suwita joined the hypervalent iodine team on a DAAD RISE internship. She is now heading back to the University of Leipzig to finish her Chemistry BSc.
Kamil Konstanciak obtained an RSC undergraduate research bursary to investigate Cu-catalysed transformations. He is currently finishing the final year of his Chemistry MSci at Nottingham.
It was great to have Charlotte and Kamil in the group. We appreciate their hard work over the summer and wish them all the best for the future!

Congratulations to Liam Fitzgerald for successfully defending his PhD thesis!

As the group’s first PhD, Liam was instrumental in setting up the O’Duill lab in Galway, where he investigated palladium-catalysis for the functionalisation of small molecules without the need for directing groups. After Miriam’s move to Nottingham, his focus shifted to the design and synthesis of glycomimetics in Prof. Paul Murphy’s group. We wish Liam all the best at his new position with Pharmaron in London which he will be starting soon.

Methods for selective deuterium incorporation into drug-like molecules have become extremely valuable due to the commercial, mechanistic, and biological importance of deuterated compounds. Today, we report a programmable, non-directed labelling platform for the C2, C3, or C2-and-C3 deuteration of indoles under mild, user-friendly conditions. Congratulations to Liam, who drove the project through the pandemic, as well as Rachael and Andrew.

Click here for a link to the paper in JOC.
A pre-print of this work was deposited in ChemRxiv in July 2022.

Congratulations to Liam Fitzgerald, who was awarded the University of Galway BOC postgraduate award for his PhD work in the O’Duill and Murphy groups. Liam drove our work on indole deuteration during the pandemic, when lab closures and restricted access to analytical services made research very challenging. It’s great to see his efforts recognised with this prize.

After a week of very cold weather (where has the summer gone?), the sun came out for our lab picnic yesterday. Thank you to everyone for your hard work – here’s to another great year of chemistry!

The Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 call is now open, and the University of Nottingham School of Chemistry is inviting potential applicants to submit an expression of interest by Wednesday, 7th June.

If you are interested in developing a proposal on hypervalent iodine chemistry or late-stage fluorination with the O’Duill group, please get in touch with miriam.oduill(at)nottingham.ac.uk as soon as possible. Full details can be found on the school’s fellowship website.

Join our team! We have two fully-funded PhD studentships available (for UK students only, due to funding restrictions).

• Project 1 investigates medical imaging agents for the diagnosis and treatment of bacterial infections.[1] Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a non-invasive diagnostic tool that is used e.g. in cancer diagnosis and treatment monitoring. We are interested in expanding its use to bacterial infections. Tracers for this application will be designed, and isotopically labelled with fluorine and deuterium. Their application as imaging agents will be investigated in collaboration with Dr Helen Betts at the Nottingham University Hospital.
  To apply to this project by 19 April 2023, follow this link to the Nottingham CDT website and apply to the DISRUPT theme.
  
• In project 2, radical precursors for atmospheric chemistry studies will be synthesised. As human emissions are reduced to Net Zero, emissions from plants – so-called biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) – will become major contributors to climate effects.[2] However, the effect of these BVOCs on the climate is not understood very well yet. In this project, we will synthesise small molecular probes to mimic BVOCs, which the Atmospheric Chemistry group under Rabi Chhantyal Pun will submit to photochemical studies to gain a better understanding of their effects on climate.
  To apply to this project, by 30 March 2023, email miriam.oduill(at)nottingham.ac.uk with a CV and cover letter.

To find out more about the two projects, please email miriam.oduill(at)nottingham.ac.uk.

References:
[1] M. G. Campbell, J. Mercier, C. Genicot, V. Gouverneur, J. M. Hooker, T. Ritter, Nature Chemistry 2017, 9, 1.
[2] Z. Feng, X. Yuan, S. Fares, F. Loreto, P. Li, Y. Hoshika, E. Paoletti, Plant, Cell & Environment 2019, 42, 1939.