Newsletter 237, 31st

May 2013

Chemistry Update

Calendar of Events

Second Year Careers Symposium

Date: Monday 10 June

Time: 10.15pm - 2.15pm

Location: A101

All second year undergraduate students welcome.

Dalton Northern Division Meeting

Date: Monday 24 June

Time: 9am - 6pm

Location: A101 & A102

Demonstrator Awards (CODYs)

Date: Thursday 27 June

Time: 4.30pm - 6pm

Location: A102

Organic Synthesis Plenary

Date: Friday 28 June

Time: 2.15pm - 5pm

Location: A101

Chemistry Open Day

Date: Wednesday 3 July

Inside this Issue

Date of Next Issue: 28th

June 2013

2013 Royal Society of Chemistry

Organic Stereochemistry Award

2-3

Dr Martin Cockett Awarded VC's

Teaching Award

3

O’Brien Group News 4

Hamilton Group News 5

The Essential Chemical Industry -

Online

6

New Instrumentation for Chemistry

Teaching Laboratory

7

Researchers’ Day 21st May 8-9

Year 1 Undergraduate Photo 9

You Can Count on Chemistry 10

First Forensic Chemistry Workshop

– Was it a suicide or murder??

11

Interview with Dr. Nick Wood 12

Interview with Dr. Rob Thatcher 13

Barbara Jones’ Retirement 14-16

New Starters 17

Chemistry York@50 team 18-19

2013 Northern England

Postgraduate Chemistry

Conference - Friday 21st July

20

Seen in Green Chemistry Cylinder

Cage

Building Progress 21

2013 Royal Society of Chemistry Organic Stereochemistry

Award

This has been awarded to Prof Peter O’Brien for his important

contributions to asymmetric synthesis, particularly the development

and applications of the (+)-sparteine surrogate.

Prior to the O’Brien group’s work, the key limitation in sparteine-

mediated asymmetric reactions was that only one enantiomeric

series was accessible, since sparteine exists in Scotch broom plants

only as its (–)-antipode. The early pioneers of sparteine chemistry

(Beak, Hoppe) did not address this problem but the O’Brien group

found a solution by designing a readily-synthesised pseudo-

enantiomer of (–)-sparteine, the so-called (+)-sparteine surrogate.

The synthetic route starts from naturally occurring (–)-cytisine which is extracted from the seeds

of the Laburnum tree (see picture). The original disclosure (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2002) has been

cited 140 times to date.

Over the last 10 years, the

O’Brien group has published a

series of 20 papers on the (+)-

sparteine surrogate. These

papers have received 627

citations (average of ~31

citations per paper). The group

published an Organic

Syntheses (2006) preparation

fn the (+)-sparteine surrogate

and it is now commercially

available from Sigma-Aldrich.

Page 2

The (+)-sparteine surrogate has been used by many other research groups around the world.

Within the context of natural product synthesis, these examples relied on the (+)-sparteine

surrogate to set up the naturally occurring stereochemistry: (–)-kainic acid (Fukuyama, Org. Lett.

2006); (–)-amurensinine (Stoltz, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2008); (–)-decarestrictine D (Aggarwal,

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2009); (–)-erogorgiaene (Aggarwal, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2011) and

(+)-sclerotiorin (Porco, J. Org. Chem. 2011). In addition to the O’Brien group’s work, the

(+)-sparteine surrogate has also been used to develop new methodology: synthesis of

P-stereogenic phosphines (Kann, Eur. J. Org. Chem. 2004); synthesis of the VAPOL ligand

(Wulff, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2009), asymmetric lithiation-borylation methodology (Aggarwal,

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2007) and asymmetric carbolithiation (Clayden, Org. Lett. 2013).

For more information, see: P. O’Brien, Chem. Commun., 2008, 655.

Page 3

Dr Martin Cockett Awarded VC's Teaching Award

Dr. Martin Cockett has received a Vice Chancellor's

Teaching Award for his highly reflective approach to the

teaching of physical chemistry and the resulting excellent

feedback from undergraduate students. The impact of his

Maths for Chemists textbooks both within and without the

University was also recognised as was his contribution to

leadership within the Department.

As a teacher of Physical Chemistry, Martin has to convey

some of the most challenging concepts in our chemistry

degree, and the feedback he gets from students is quite simply outstanding. In fact, one of our

own undergraduates described him as the 'Lionel Messi of Physical Chemistry teaching'. In

addition to his exceptional lecturing and teaching skills, Martin is co-author of a textbook which

aims to teach Maths to chemists in a contextualised and integrated way, which can easily be

understood by chemists with a wide range of mathematical backgrounds. The Chair of the Board

of Studies, Prof Dave Smith said, 'The Department of Chemistry here in York prides itself on the

impact its academic staff have on our undergraduates - Martin's award is very well deserved and

goes to show the ability of our talented staff to enthuse students with challenging subject matter.'

The award will be presented at one of the University's Summer degree ceremonies.

Giacomo Gelardi, a 3rd

year PhD student, was selected to give an oral presentation at the 24th

SCI Regional Graduate Symposium on Novel Organic Chemistry in Leeds. Some of the group

went along to cheer Giacomo on and his talk went down very well.

Ten members of the organic synthesis group (including Richard Taylor, Peter O’ Brien and Paul

Clarke) attended the RSC Grasmere Heterocyclic Conference on 9th-13

th May. Paul gave a

lecture and there were poster presentations from Giacomo Gelardi and James Firth. York

scooped a poster prize with James Firth’s poster being chosen as one of the best at the meeting

– congratulations to James. The weather was a bit mixed as shown by the photograph below –

there are hills in the background – honest!

O’Brien Group News

Page 4

At the start of March, Dr Jacqui Hamilton, Prof Ally Lewis, Dr Richard Lidster and Dr Noelia

Ramirez went to the 10th GCxGC symposium in Palm Springs, California. Jacqui gave a talk

entitled “Development of nitrogen chemiluminescence as a powerful detector for GCxGC” and

Richard was awarded a travel grant and presented a talk on his work entitled “From the Olympics

to the North Sea Gas Fields – Using GCxGC to Investigate Atmospheric Complexity”. The

conference was joint with the 37th International Symposium on Capillary Chromatography and

included some really interesting presenters. Palm Springs was a great place to visit and everyone

enjoyed the margaritas and Mexican food.

Kelly Pereira, a third year PhD student in the Hamilton

group spent most of May working in Paris at LISA

(Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes

Atmosphériques), a mixed research laboratory between

Paris-Est Créteil University (UPEC), Paris Diderot

University (UPD) and Centre National de la Recherche

Scientifique (CNRS). During her 4 week stay, Kelly

learnt how to use and design further programs for an

atmospheric model, called the atchem box model. The

atchem box model is designed to simulate the chemistry

of both gaseous and particulate phase compounds

formed for the atmospheric oxidation of volatile

precursors investigated in experimental chambers. The comparison of model simulations to

experimental results will allow us to investigate whether the atmospheric oxidation processes

occurring are fully understood or whether further improvements are needed.

Hamilton Group News

Page 5

The Essential Chemical Industry - Online

CIEC's Promoting Science group have recently compiled a comprehensive online reference

library of the world's principal industrial chemicals.

The library is intended for school, college

and university students and their teachers,

as well as industrial chemists and

employees of chemical companies requiring

a quick reference or overview.

This new web-based edition has been

developed from the latest (5th) edition of the book The Essential Chemical Industry.

There are 76 units, divided into six sections, which describe key aspects of the chemical industry

in a concise way, with easy cross-referencing and drill-down capability.

The six sections are:

An introduction

Industrial processes (such as catalysis and green chemistry)

Materials and applications (including biofuels and nanomaterials)

Basic chemicals (from ammonia to urea)

Polymers

Metals (from aluminium to zinc)

Written by members of CIEC staff, and with the advice of over 200 experts in the field, the site is

systematically reviewed and updated to ensure that it remains relevant and authoritative. The

units are illustrated with over 220 photographs and diagrams, many companies providing recent

and specially commissioned photographs to illustrate specific points raised in the text.

“This is a book that every school library ought to have - and possibly every chemistry classroom”.

Review of the 5th edition of ECI: School Science Review, 2011, 92(341), 129.

Page 6

As part of a continuing programme of investment in our teaching laboratories, the Department of

Chemistry has committed a further £60k to purchase new laboratory instrumentation and

equipment this summer.

New purchases will include four gas chromatography

(GC) systems, including autosamplers, software and

hydrogen detectors. An additional attenuated total

reflection accessory will also be purchased to

increase our capacity for ATR infrared (IR)

spectroscopy.

This investment follows on from an investment of around £150k last summer, in new

instrumentation for our teaching laboratory, which helps to ensure that our students are trained

on the most modern state-of-the-art spectrometers.

Dr Anne-Kathrin Duhme-Klair (Teaching Laboratory Equipment and Infrastructure Officer) noted:

"With these new GC instruments, we now have the capacity to increase the number of practical

experiments that rely on GC detection. The instruments allow training in both manual injection

techniques and the use of auto-samplers for high throughput analysis".

Page 7

New Instrumentation for Chemistry Teaching Laboratory

Caption Competiton

A prize for the best caption to the photo.

Researchers’ Day 21st May

We held our 4th successful researchers day on 21

st May. Over a hundred staff and students

attended the day to hear talks from postdocs across the department. The day started with Dr

Andy Parsons, Deputy HoD, giving an update on developments in the Chemistry Department,

and Professor Robin Perutz telling us about progress on Athena SWAN.

The Postdoc speakers gave excellent and varied talks. They were:

Tim Hurst (Organic Chemistry – Richard Taylor’s group): Synthesis of Oxindoles by Copper-

Catalysed C-H/Ar-H Coupling

Sarah Moller (Atmospheric Chemistry): The Science of Air – A Simple Story of Endless

Complexity

Barbara Procacci (Inorganic Chemistry – Simon Duckett/Robin Perutz’s groups): Competitive

Small Molecule Activation at Rhodium

James Sherwood (Green Chemistry – James Clark’s group): Knowledge Based Bio-based

Products’ Pre-Standardization

Glyn Hemsworth (York Structural Biology Laboratory): Structural Studies of a Bacterial Lytic

Polysaccaride Monooxygenase

Ananya Sen (Physical Chemistry – Caroline Dessent’s group): Chiral Recognition in Neutral and

Ionic Molecular Complexes Page 8

It was great to see some of our newer postdocs

taking up the opportunity to speak about their

previous research as well as what they are working

on now.

We had 19 poster contributions and an audience

vote of the best poster went to Thomas Ronson.

A big thanks to Dr Rob Thatcher for putting the

programme of speakers together, and to Alice

Duckett, Rachel Crooks and Jenny Hudson for

organising the day, the lunch and the wine

reception.

Dr Sue Couling

Page 9

Year 1 Undergraduate Photo

The Get fit @50 team underwent virtual teleportation to Rio last Thursday with Copa Cobana

cocktails, Brazil nuts, pineapple and chocolate in the Chemistry tea room. The South American

carnival city is the starting point for the 3 month challenge, taken on by the team of 7 including 3

keen cyclists and a spinner who in spite of not having wheels in contact with terra firma will be

able to clock up the miles, as will the swimmers, on their international journey.

By Monday their collective steps had taken them to La Laja in the Chilean rain forest where there

are 2.4 billion ants per sq mile – that should keep them moving.

The team plan to hold more coffee time celebrations as the journey progresses and will be

keeping tabs on the 24 other University teams entering into the spirit of adventure.

You Can Count on Chemistry

Page 10

This year saw the introduction of the first Forensic

Chemistry workshop as part of the Year 3 Option

Module Analytical and Forensic Chemistry. The

students entered the workshop to find a staged

crime scene, with a deceased male (Bob the

Chemist), who appeared to have shot himself in

the head. Students were split into groups and had

to develop strategies to collect and analyse the

evidence at the scene. Finally the students had to

prepare a witness statement for a criminal court.

The students took on the challenge really well and

played their parts with gusto.

First Forensic Chemistry Workshop – Was it a suicide or

murder??

Page 11

Teaching Fellow

I started as a Teaching Fellow in the Department in

2006, a few months after finishing my PhD. Initially

my job was to cover some tutorials and

demonstrating for Dr. Anne-Kathrin Duhme-Klair,

while she was on research leave. As time has gone

on, my role has evolved; I still do tutorials and

laboratory demonstrating, but I also run some

practical courses, deliver a couple of lecture

courses, and I've taken on various teaching-related

administrative roles.

My main administrative role is as Director of Studies

for two of our teaching colleges, Pauling and

Woodward. This involves working out the best

solution for matching academic colleagues to

teaching commitments, monitoring student

attendance and performance, and trying to support students (and supervisors) as much as I can.

I've been involved with organising practical work since 2007, working with the technical staff and

the course organisers to ensure that the practical courses run as intended. I've recently handed

this role over (to Prof. Peter O'Brien), although I still help out, especially with writing and

implementing new experiments.

I have just taken over as Chair of the Staff-Student Committee, having been a member for

several years. This is one of the main ways that students can give us their opinions on the

degree course, and we get some very valuable feedback from it. Chairing this committee means

that I also sit on the Departmental Teaching Committee.

I've been in York since 1997, going from my undergraduate degree into a PhD, and then into my

current position. I really enjoyed the laboratory demonstrating I did during my PhD, and so I was

very fortunate that the teaching fellowship opened up when it did.

I live a short walk from campus, with my wife Laura (who sometimes provides me with cake to

bring in) and my daughter Rebecca (nearly 2, who sometimes helps with the cake), in a house

with more books than shelf space. My non-work hours are mostly spent trying redress this

imbalance (by making shelves, rather than destroying books).

Interview with Dr. Nick Wood

Page 12

Post-Doc, Chechik Group

I started working with Victor at the start of 2012 on a project

looking at the biological activity of gold nanoparticles. It

was a completely new area for me, and one that I didn’t

really know anything about, so it was quite surprising when

I was offered the job. My work is mainly synthetic chemistry

although I also spend a large amount of time with the

Genever group in Biology, where we test our materials on

various cell lines. Aside from research, I have also carried

out some tutorial work and helped in the running of the

undergraduate physical-organic labs.

I was also involved in the organisation of the Researchers’

Day held on the 21st May with talks from post-docs and a

PhD poster session – I hope everyone who attended

enjoyed the day.

I am the post-doc representative on the Communications Group for the Department so if any

researchers have any issues or suggestions to raise about communications within the

Department then please let me know.

I grew up in Lochgilphead on the West coast of Scotland and went to university at Glasgow,

where I originally studied for a degree in pure mathematics. A few years later I realised I’d made

a grave mistake and changed my course to a Masters Degree in ‘Chemistry with Medicinal

Chemistry’. As part of my degree, I spent a year in industry with GlaxoSmithKline in Harlow,

Essex, researching drug candidates for treatment of Schizophrenia. After graduating, I moved to

York and carried out my PhD with Richard Douthwaite studying novel nitrogen-donor ligands

and their coordination chemistry. During this time, I also held the position of student technician

for the small molecule X-ray crystallography service, working with Adrian Whitwood. Shortly

after, I made the move (3 metres across the corridor in B-Block) to the Chechik group.

Interview with Dr. Rob Thatcher

Page 13

Barbara Jones retired on Friday 17 May after 18 years in the Department working in various roles

including support for Chemistry and Physics Review and short courses. More recently Barbara

provided support for REF and was the Examinations Administrator.

A tea party was held on Friday

afternoon to say goodbye to Barbara

and thank her for all her work over the

years. Thanks to Jo for the

organisation of the party and to

everyone else who provided cakes,

props and helped set up and tidy away

on the day.

Barbara Jones’ Retirement

Page 14

We wish Barbara a very happy retirement.

Page 17

New Starters

Sarah Holberry, Undergraduate Assessment Administrator.

Extension number: 2512, Room: C/A111,

Email: sarah.holberry@york.ac.uk

Charlotte Brannigan, Research Technician, working for Dr

Avtar Matharu in Green Chemistry.

Extension number: 4549, Room: C/B018,

Email: charlotte.brannigan@york.ac.uk

Dr John Darby, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, working for Prof Roderick Hubbard in YSBL.

Extension number: 8276, Room: B/K266, Email: john.darby@york.ac.uk

Dr Martyn Ward, Experimental Officer, working for Prof Lucy Carpenter.

Extension number: 2565, Room: A023d, Email: martyn.ward@york.ac.uk

Victoria Wren, EDRF Project & Contracts Officer, working for Dr Fabien Deswarte in the

Biorenewable Development Centre (BDC).

Extension number: 327825, Room: Biocentre 2.89b, Email: vicky.wren@york.ac.uk

Darren Phillips, Process Development Unit Technician, working for Dr Mark Gronnow in the

Biorenewable Development Centre (BDC).

Extension number: 561568, Room: Biocentre 2.52, Email: darren.phillips@york.ac.uk

Barbara Procacci, Postdoctoral Resaerch Fellow, working with Prof Simon Duckett.

Extension number: 8894, CHM/115, Email: barbara.procacci@york.ac.uk

Jane Harrison, Administrative Assistant in YSBL.

Extension number: 8259, Room: B/K167, Email: jane.harrison@york.ac.uk

Welcome to Professor John Spencer from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, who is

spending six weeks in Duncan Bruce's group.

Duncan Bruce Group News

Six chemistry staff have got together to form the Chemistry York@50 team. Angela Longman,

Helen Burrell, Sally Lewis, Sandra Greive, Adrian Whitwood and a new recruit, Tim Ganderton.

Most of the cycle team! Sally, Helen, Adrian and Sandra

The York@50 sporting challenges are sponsored events and not only provide the participants

with a good time and a chance to push their fitness but also make a difference to young people in

York. There are two charities: Achieving Excellence Bursaries—helping students from low-

incomes to come study at York, and Project Snowball—improving the facilities at Snowball

Plantation, a scout camp used by many youth organisation such as cubs, scouts, brownies and

guides; St John ambulance cadets; and YUSU’s flagship volunteering project Kids' Camp, which

has given a break to some of York’s most vulnerable children over the last 50 years. More

information can be found online at

http://www.yorkspace.net/york50

York@50 has two challenges. The first was a 10

km fun run which took place a few of weeks

ago. Angela Longman competed in this. You

can still sponsor her though.

Angela in action!

Chemistry York@50 team

The second challenge is a bike ride with various

distances; the chemistry cycle team are doing the

longest, 52 mile, route. Helen and Adrian have been

for a couple of training rides with Helen’s husband,

Paul, providing encouragement. As well as enjoying

the views, near Wetherby they discovered a secret

weapon - a tardis. It’s neat to arrive before you’ve

left!

Sponsorship can be done online at:

https://www.justgiving.com/Adrian-Whitwood or sign

the forms in the coffee room, teaching labs, YSBL or

porter’s desk.

Helen & Paul near Low Ouseburn

Paul and Adrian with the tardis!

PLEASE SPONSOR US! Page 19

Page 20

Seen in Green Chemistry Cylinder Cage

What we would all like to know is how do the birds know to build their nest on a cylinder that is

only changed every six months!

The Department of Chemistry is hosting this conference which is open to research students in

any area of Chemistry. Abstracts are invited from those interested in giving a talk or displaying a

poster. We hope to attract research students from a wide range of areas, and give them the

opportunity to showcase their work to other research students in the region.

Further information is available on the website and registration is now open:

http://www.york.ac.uk/chemistry/postgraduate/2013northernenglandpostgraduatechemistryconference/

2013 Northern England Postgraduate Chemistry

Conference - Friday 26th July

There has been little visible progress on the new F-Block

building since the last issue.

On the Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratory building

the steel structure and pre-cast concrete items have been

installed.

The builders, Simpsons, have provided some

photographs, including one of the internal

staircases and a view from the roof of the

building towards the main Chemistry building.

Page 21

Building Progress