About the Project
Electrosynthesis is a powerful tool in organic chemistry that circumvents the use of expensive and toxic reagents for the green and safe generation of high energy intermediates. Even though a plethora of transformations have been developed, and many of them were successfully used in several industrial processes, the potential of preparative organic electrochemistry remains largely underestimated.
We have recently developed novel electrochemical methodologies that allow generating organic and organometallic highly reactive intermediates under mild, green, economic and safe conditions. We have successfully applied those methodologies to the preparation of new types of anticancer drugs.
We are now looking for highly motivated PhD students to join our team and further explore the synthetic potential of these high-energy intermediates under both batch and flow conditions to prepare pharmaceutically relevant fragments.
The candidate:
The project would be suitable for a student with a strong background in synthetic chemistry and an interest in medicinal chemistry and electrochemistry.
The Student will be supervised by Dr Kevin Lam (http://www.lamresearchgroup.com) and join a group of young, international and dynamic researchers!
The Laboratory
The Lam Group is housed within a newly refurbished laboratory and is very well equipped with more than 14 Electrasyns 2.0, an electrochemical flow system, a glovebox, a solvent purification system, several automatic chromatography columns, a GC-MS, etc.
The university will also provide the Student with routine access to 4 NMR spectrometers, several UPLC-MS, a high-resolution mass spectrometer, MALDI-TOF, etc.
References
"Supporting-Electrolyte-Free Anodic Oxidation of Oxamic Acids into Isocyanates: An Expedient Way to Access Ureas, Carbamates, and Thiocarbamates”, Petti A., Fagnan C., van Melis C., Tanbouza N., Garcia A. D., Mastrodonato A., Leech M. C., Goodall I. C. A., Dobbs A. P., Ollevier T., Lam K., Org. Process Res. Dev., 2021, DOI: 10.1021/acs.oprd.1c00112
“Organic Electrosynthesis: from Academia to Industry” Leech M. C., Garcia A. D., Petti A., Dobbs A. P., Lam K., React. Chem. Eng., 2020, DOI: 10.1039/D0RE00064G
"Anodic Oxidation of Dithiane Carboxylic Acids: A Rapid and Mild Way to Access Functionalized Orthoesters" Garcia A., Leech M. C., Petti A., Denis C., Goodall I., Dobbs A. P., Lam K., Org. Lett., 2020, DOI: 10.1021/acs.orglett.0c01324
"Kolbe Anodic Decarboxylation as a Green Way To Access 2-Pyrrolidinones" Quertenmont M., Goodall I., Lam K., Riant O., Org. Lett., 2020, 22, 1771-1775. DOI: 10.1021/acs.orglett.0c00056
“Linear correlation of vertical ionization energies and partial charges on acetaldehyde and methyl formate radicals in various solvents” Lam K., Zeinalipour-Yazdi C. D., Chem. Phys. Lett., DOI: 10.1016/j.cplett.2020.137311
“Electrosynthesis Using Carboxylic Acid Derivatives – New Tricks for Old Reactions”, Leech M. C., Lam K., Acc. Chem. Res., 2020, DOI: 10.1021/acs.accounts.9b00586
“Shedding light on the use of Cu(II)-salen complexes in the A3 coupling reaction”, Sampani S. I., Zdorichenko V., Danopoulou M., Leech M. C., Lam K., Adbul-Sada A., Cox B., Tizzard G. J., Coles S. J., Tsipis A., Kostakis G. E., Dalton Trans., 2020, DOI: 10.1039/C9DT04146J
“Anodic Oxidation of Ethynylferrocene Derivatives in Homogeneous Solution and Following Anodic Deposition onto Glassy Carbon Electrodes”, Sheridan M., Lam K., Waterman R., Geiger W.E., ChemElectroChem, 2019, DOI:10.1002/celc.201901545
“Economical, Green and Safe Route Towards Substituted Lactones via the Anodic Generation of Oxycarbonyl Radicals” Petti A., Leech M. C., Garcia A. D., Goodall I., Dobbs A. P., Lam K., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2019, 58, 16115.
“Supporting‐Electrolyte‐Free Electrochemical Methoxymethylation of Alcohols Using a 3D‐Printed Electrosynthesis Continuous Flow Cell System” van Melis C. G. W., Penny M. R., Garcia A. D., Petti A., Dobbs A. P., Hilton S. T., Lam K., ChemElectroChem, 2019, 6, 1. 4144.
“Aryl Germanes as Ligands for Transition Polymetallic Complexes: Synthesis, Structure, and Properties” Zaitsev K. V., Lam K., Poleshchuk O. K., Bezzubov S. I.. Churakov A. V., Eur. J. Inorg. Chem., 2019, 22, 2750.