Elias Zerhouni, the NIH Director in 2002-2008, was surprised to discover that “the number one stumbling block in biomedical research is [still] synthetic organic chemistry.” Our research addresses this challenge by developing sustainable methodology for the synthesis and functionalisation of drug-like molecules. We currently have three strands of research: 

(1) We are developing transition-metal catalysed reactions to access new pharmaceutical targets. Lately, we are particularly interested in sp3-rich molecules.

2) We are also investigating hypervalent iodine(III) reagents as a sustainable, metal-free alternative to transition-metal catalysis. Recently, we achieved a breakthrough in rational reagent design, synthesising a so-far elusive (2,2-difluoroethyl)iodonium reagent and applying it to the difluoroethylation of a variety of biologically relevant heteroatom nucleophiles. Current projects are expanding this methodology to other pharmaceutically relevant scaffolds.

(3) A highly collaborative research theme in our group investigates new isotopic labelling methodology for medical imaging and drug development with collaborators at the Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre and Nottingham University Hospital. Current projects focus on the development of new PET and MRI tracers for the imaging of bacterial infections, and deuteration as a tool to modulate metabolic stability and pharmacokinetic properties of drug targets.

We gratefully acknowledge financial support from AstraZeneca, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Leverhulme Trust, Royal Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, Science Foundation Ireland, UKRI (EPSRC, MRC, BRC), and the University of Nottingham.