The Moran Lab celebrates 10 great years! Several former group members from around Europe were able to attend the celebration and shared short presentations about their jobs and life since leaving the lab. A day to remember!
10-year Lab Anniversary
Vuk Vukovic
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).
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!
Dr. Vuk Vuković
Congrats to Vuk Vuković on successfully defending his thesis! He is the fourth PhD student to graduate from the group. After throwing a big party with friends from all over Europe, he will return to the lab for three months before heading off to his next adventure. Special thanks to jury members Prof. Vincent Gandon, Prof. Sébastien Thibaudeau and Dr. Joanna Wencel-Delord.
Vuk wins poster prize at SCF-18
Vuk Vuković has won the EuCheMS poster prize at the 18th meeting of the French Chemical Society (SCF), held this week in Montpellier. His poster described the use of HFIP to enable dehydrative Friedel-Crafts reactions for a variety of alcohols. Way to go, Vuk!
New publication
Ed, Jing and Vuk’s paper in Chemical Science shows that hexafluoroisopropanol solvent enables simple monosubstituted cyclopropanes to undergo ring-opening hydroarylation – no donor-acceptor motif required. A good chunk of this work came from Jing’s M2 internship in our group. Special thanks to the Rowley group from Memorial University in Canada for the DFT calculations. Congrats to all!
New publication
Ed and Vuk’s paper on the accelerating effect of HFIP solvent on nucleophilic ring-opening of donor-acceptor cyclopropanes has been published in Organic Letters. Congrats!
New publication
Vuk, Ed and Eléna’s article on HFIP-assisted dehydrative Friedel-Crafts reactions of highly deactivated benzylic alcohols has been accepted for publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. It is Vuk’s first paper from his PhD and Eléna’s last. Congrats!
Sreejith and Vuk join the group
Sreejith Varma (financed by ERC) and Vuk Vukovic (financed by an MRT fellowship) join the group as PhD students. A warm welcome to both!
The Moran Research Group 