Ren’s new Paper in OBC

Our latest paper has been published online in the RSC journal Org Biomol Chem. The paper describes a new way to make glycosyl chlorides using oxalyl chloride as chlorine source and just a catalytic amount of phosphine oxide. The reaction is very clean and so the product can be further reacted without purification in a subsequent organocatalytic glycosylation.

The paper comprises work by Imlirenla, Eoghan and our UCD colleague Kirill Nikitin. This is Ren’s second paper and first as lead author, so particular congratulations to her. The research was funded by Science Foundation Ireland (mostly under a CDA grant to Eoghan). The paper can be read online (currently with a valid subscription, open access will follow, reprints available, email Eoghan):

Org Biomol Chem 2019, advance article; I Pongener, K Nikitin  and  E M McGarrigle — Synthesis of Glycosyl Chlorides using Catalytic Appel Conditions. DOI: 10.1039/C9OB01544B 

 

Advertisement

Inaugural Lecture and Medals Awarded

Congratulations to Joseph Ruddy, Cian Reid and Cathal Caulfield – yesterday they were awarded Dervilla Donnelly medals for finishing joint top of the 2018 BSc class in Medicinal Chemistry & Chemical Biology. Cian and Joe carried out their final year research projects in the group last year. Joe is a current group member while Cian is now a research student in the Guiry group. Congratulations also to our former summer intern, Anna Sozanschi, who was awarded the Frank Hegarty medal for her performance in the 3rd year of the BSc in Medicinal Chemistry & Chemical Biology. For a full list of winners see the School news item.

These medals were awarded as part of the School of Chemistry’s Research Day. The research day finished with the UCD Chemistry Society’s Inaugural Lecture. The invited lecture was given this year by Prof Steve Ley (Univ. Cambridge). Well done to the ChemSoc team for all their efforts throughout the year, especially President Gaffney!

Congratulations Dr O’Fearraigh!

Congratulations to Martin who passed his PhD viva voce exam yesterday! This is culmination of 4 years of research for Martin. We had a party to celebrate of course. The examination was conducted by Prof. Marc Lecouvey (Univ. Paris 13) as the external examiner and Prof. Pat Guiry (UCD) as the internal examiner, with Prof Mike Casey (UCD) as chair. In the afternoon Prof. Lecouvey gave a seminar on his own research on “The Synthesis of Bisphosphorylated Compounds and their Applications in Biomedicine“. Martin’s PhD was sponsored by the Irish Research Council under a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship. Some of his PhD has been published in Synthesis last year and more publications will follow.

Congrats Dionysia!

Congratulations to Dionysia, who was awarded a poster prize at the CSCB Symposium last week. Dionysia’s research is funded by SFI under a CDA award to Eoghan (15/CDA/3625). The whole group attended the Centre for Synthesis & Chemical Biology’s annual symposium “Recent Advances in Synthesis & Chemical Biology XVII” which this year was held in the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin. Eoghan chaired the Eli Lily Lecture given by his former colleague Prof. Kevin Booker-Milburn from the University of Bristol. Other lectures were given by Profs. Jonathan Nitschke (Cambridge), Chris Braddock (Imperial), Ed Tate (Imperial), Helma Wennemers (ETH Zurich). It was an excellent day of science with the 5 lectures from world-leaders complemented by approx. 50 posters presented by PhD students and Postdocs. Well done to our labmate Claudio Monasterolo from the Gilheany group who also won a poster prize.