Research
The goal of our research programme is to make the synthesis of medicinally-relevant motifs much more efficient, safe, practical and sustainable than is currently possible. We also aim to influence molecular design in medicinal chemistry through studying the properties and activity of a range of novel functional motifs.
Organofluorine Chemistry
Fluorine appears in over 25% of all commercial drugs on the market today. We aim to allow the synthesis of interesting, under-studied fluorinated motifs in a way which will allow their efficient, late-stage introduction into drug-like molecules.
We have had a focus to date on the synthesis of fluorinated ketones, which are useful as enzyme inhibitors but had been challenging to make.
Future work will focus on the efficient one-step incorporation of novel fluorinated motifs into drug-like molecules so that these motifs, which can impact factors such as drug binding and distribution, can be properly exploited and studied.
Organoboron Chemistry
Boron is proving to be one of the most influential elements in the way we construct molecules, allowing the selective formation of a range of carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bonds.
We have developed two new coupling methods using geminal bis(boron) compounds. The first allows the homologative coupling of aldehydes or ketones - the outcome being chain extension by one carbon atom and the introduction of a new ketone substituent. We have also developed a selective method for bis(enolate) formation which overcomes traditional challenges of regioselectivity encountered in base-mediated enolate formation.
We will continue to use boron to develop novel coupling processes which allow fragments of target molecules to be joined togehter easily.
Medicinal Chemistry
We aim to understand the properties of molecules as potential medicines. In particular we study the effects of fluorination and other halogens on the binding f molecules, and on physicochemical properties. We use a combination of physical-organic chemistry, computation and biological studies to understand this, aiming to come up with rules that other researchers will be able to follow.
Get in touch to learn more about our research.