New publication

Our paper on a large expansion of the Friedel-Crafts reaction has been accepted for publication in Chem. We describe Friedel-Crafts reactions with primary aliphatic alcohols and electronically deactivated epoxides, as well as sequential Friedel-Crafts reactions stemming from epoxide-opening, all without pre-activation. This was a massive project with over 170 examples, some of it reaching back nearly 4 years. Congrats to Shaofei, Marie, Florent, Vuk and Andrei and to our DFT collaborators in the Rowley lab (Carleton).

Dr. Florent Noel

Congrats to Florent Noel on successfully defending his thesis! He is the seventh PhD student to graduate from the group. Special thanks to jury members Prof. Philippe Belmont, Dr. Christophe Bour and Dr. Mihaela Gulea for being part of the jury, which was done partly in person and partly over Zoom. Unfortunately, no pot de thèse was possible due to the coronavirus pandemic, but we will have a real party as soon as it is feasible (hopefully by the summer)!

New publication

Florent, Vuk, Jing, Ed and Pavle’s article on the synthesis of CF3-bearing allenes, chromenes and olefins starting from propargylic alcohols has been accepted for publication in The Journal of Organic Chemistry. Congrats!

TOC

Paul, Florent and Shaofei join the group

The fourth incoming class of PhD students joins the group. Paul Chatelain (MRT fellowship) returned this October to continue his MSc work on protometabolism. Florent Noel (Région Alsace fellowship) and Shaofei Zhang (CSC fellowship) arrived in November to initiate a new project on directed Brønsted acid catalysis. A warm welcome to all three!