Group News

2025

Congratulations to Lukas Hoff, who has accepted a permanent position as an R&D chemist at Dottikon (Switzerland).

2024

Congratulations to Dr Gilian Thomas, who recently joined the University of Leeds to start her independent career.

Congratulations to Annabel Flook who has been awarded Best Oral Presentation Prize at the Annual Organic Firbush Meeting.

Congratulations to Chen Li for his poster prize at the 26th IUPAC International Conference on Physical Organic Chemistry (ICPOC-26)

Congratulations to Nicole Fohn for her poster prize in Reaction Chemistry & Engineering at BOSS XVIII in Liège, Belgium.

Congratulations to Annabel Flook who has been awarded the Oral Presentation Prize at the NMRDG Postgraduate Meeting 2024 in Birmingham.

Congratulations to Yuan Gao who has been awarded the RSC Researcher Collaboration Grant. She will work with Dr Ulrich Hintermair, Dr John Lowe and Dr Catherine Lyall at the Dynamic Reaction Monitoring Facility (DReaM, University of Bath) for 3 months.

Congratulations to Dr Christina Wartmann who has been awarded the Alder Prize for the best PhD thesis in Organic Chemistry (2023) from the University of Cologne.

Congratulations to Roisin O'Dea, who has been awarded a Poster Presentation at the annual Joseph Black conference (2024) held at the University of Edinburgh.

Congratulations to Chen Li, who has also received an RSC Researcher Development and Travel Grant for the 26th IUPAC International Conference on Physical Organic Chemistry this coming August (Aug 2024).

Congratulations to Chen Li, who has received the ICPOC grant for the 26th IUPAC International Conference on Physical Organic Chemistry this coming August (Aug 2024).

Congratulations to Yuan Gao who was awarded the NMRDG bursary to present her recently published work at the upcoming NMRDG Postgraduate Meeting in Birmingham.

Congratulations to Hannah Minshull, Pedro Helou de Oliveira and Nicole Fohn, who have received RSC researcher development grants for BOSS XVIII this coming July.

2023

Dr Christina Wartmann (University of Cologne, Germany) awarded a two year Walter Benjamin Scholarship to join the group as a postdoc in 2024.

Guy Lloyd-Jones FRS Receives the Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence.

Congratulations to Annabel Flook, who has been awarded Poster Presentation Prize at Small Molecule NMR Conference (SMASH) 2023.

Her success was later featured in the online article of the University of Edinburgh. (October 10, 2023)

Congratulations to Roisin O'Dea, who has been awarded Poster Presentation Prize at 19th European Symposium on Organic Reactivity (ESOR) 2023.

Her success was later featured in the online article of the University of Edinburgh. (October 10, 2023)

Congratulations to Hannah Minshull, who has been awarded Best Oral Presentation Prize and Annabel Flook, who has been awarded Best Poster Prize at the Annual Organic Firbush Meeting

Congratulations to Annabel Flook and Dr Andrew Hall for being awarded the SMASH (Small Molecules Are Still Hot) NMR Conference Scholarship, and Andrew has also received the RSC researcher development grant for SMASH. 

Congratulations to Roisin O'Dea for receiving the RSC researcher development grant to attend the 19th European Symposium on Organic Reactivity (ESOR).

Congratulations to Pedro Helou de Oliveira and Hannah Minshull for receiving the RSC researcher development grant to attend the European Symposium of Organic Chemistry (ESOC).

Congratulations to Annabel Flook, who won the Poster Prize at the 5th Annual Reaction Monitoring Symposium in Bath.

Congratulations to Nicole Fohn for the Running Up Presentation prize at the Syngenta Collaborative Conference, 2023.

Congratulations to Nicole Fohn for the Running Up Presentation prize for her talk at the Annual Joseph Black Conference, 2023. 

Congratulations to Annabel Flook and Nicole Fohn for receiving the SNUG bursary, and Annabel for also receiving the NMRDG bursary to present posters at EUROMAR 2023.

Congratulations to Annabel Flook and Nicole Fohn, who have both received RSC researcher development grants for the NMR Summer School and Schloss Windischleuba.

Congratulations to Dr Hannah Hayes (PhD 2021) who will become a Mechanistic Chemist in Chemical Development at AstraZeneca after she completes her Postdoc in Early Chemical Development this November. 

Congratulations to Yuan Gao who has been awarded one of the highly competitive RSC BMCS International Travel Prizes 2023.

2022

Congratulations to Nicole Fohn, who won the runner-up poster prize at the 2022 Syngenta Collaboration Conference.

Congratulations to Ran Wei, who won a Poster Prize at the 2022 SMASH Conference in La Jolla, and a Presentation Prize at the Global NMR Twitter Conference 2022.

Congratulations to Dr Harvey Dale, who in October will be elected to the John Henry Coates Research Fellowship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, to be held in conjunction with an 1851 Research Fellowship at the MRC Lab of Molecular Biology.

The summer of success continues for the Lloyd-Jones group: Yuan Gao and Ran Wei have both been awarded $1000 Scholarships to present their work at the SMASH NMR conference at La Jolla, and Dr Andrés García-Domínguez has secured a highly competitive and prestigious 5 year Royal Society University Research Fellowship to begin his independent academic career at Edinburgh in 2023.

Congratulations to Katie Grant, who has been awarded Second Poster Prize at the 4th Annual Reaction Monitoring Symposium in Bath.

Congratulations to Nicole Fohn, who has been awarded Best Oral Presentation Prize at the Organic Firbush Meeting.

Congratulations to Ran Wei and Yuan Gao, who have been awarded first and second prizes, respectively, for their presentations at the Annual Joseph Black Conference (Edinburgh, 2022).

Congratulations to Harvey Dale, who has secured a highly competitive and prestigious 1851 Royal Commission’s Research Fellowship to begin his independent research career.

Congratulations to Yuan Gao, who was selected as a finalist in the Chemistry Category of STEM for BRITAIN 2022.

2021

Congratulations to Yael Ben-Tal, who was awarded the Young Chemist Award at the 7th Winter Process Chemistry Conference, Leeds 2021.

Congratulations to Ran Wei, who was awarded the First Place Poster Competition Prize at the SMASH (Small Molecules Are Still Hot) NMR Conference 2021.

Congratulations to Ran Wei, who was awarded the Second Place Poster Competition Prize in the Royal Society of Chemistry NMR Discussion Group (NMRDG) Annual Postgraduate Meeting 2021.

Congratulations to Maciej Kucharski, who was awarded the Third Place Poster Competition Prize at the Royal Society of Chemistry Organic Division Scottish Regional (Perkin) Meeting 2021.

2020

Congratulations to Harvey Dale, who was awarded first prize (PSG) for his final year presentation to the Syngenta Collaborative Research Conference 2020.

Professor Lloyd-Jones FRS joins the ACS flagship publication The Journal of the American Chemical Society as an Associate Editor.

Congratulations to Katie Grant who was awarded the RSC Remote Schools Engagement Grant.

Many congratulations to Alex Pagett who will take up the position of Senior Scientist at Pharmaron UK on July 20th.

Congratulations to Yael Ben-Tal who was chosen to represent College of Science and Engineering in the university finals of the 3 Minutes Thesis competition.

Congratulations to Yael Ben-Tal and Harvey Dale who have both been awarded one of the highly competitive RSC BMCS International Travel Prizes 2020.

Congratulations to Yael Ben-Tal, who has been awarded the first place poster prize at the annual RSC Perkin Meeting, held at St Andrews University.

2019

Congratulations to Harvey Dale, who has been awarded the first place poster prize at the annual RSC Organic Division Poster Symposium, held at Burlington House, London.

Congratulations to Harvey Dale, who has been selected to present his research at the RSC Organic Division Poster Symposium 2019.

Congratulations to Katie Grant, a former project student in the Lloyd-Jones Group, who has been awarded a runner-up prize at the SCI National Undergraduate Research Symposium for her talk on the mechanistic study of the gem-difluorocyclopropanation of alkenes by TMSCF3. Katie will be returning to the group as a PhD student in September.

Congratulations to Harvey Dale, who has been awarded Best Oral Presentation Prize and to Patrick Boaler, who has been awarded Best Chair Prize, both at the Organic Firbush Meeting.

Congratulations to Harvey Dale, who has been awarded Best Poster Prize at the Annual Joseph Black Conference (Edinburgh, 2019).

Congratulations to Harvey Dale, who has been awarded an RSC Continental Travel Bursary to attend the 3rd International Symposium on Synthesis and Catalysis (Evora, 2019).

We are delighted to welcome our new Visiting Academic, Professor Mike Page, a world renowned expert in Physical Organic Chemistry, BioOrganic and Medicinal Chemistry, and Enzymology.

Congratulations to Harvey Dale who was awarded first prize, by Prof Ben List, for his poster presentation “Taming Ambident Triazole Nucleophiles: Molecular Recognition and Organocatalysis“ at the SCI Advances in Organocatalysis Conference in London.

Congratulations to Hannah Hayes and Alex Pagett who have both been awarded a 2019 BMCS International Travel Prize.

2018

Congratulations to Harvey Dale who has been awarded a poster prize at the 46th RSC Scottish Organic Division Meeting, held at the University of Strathclyde.

Congratulations to Harvey Dale who has been awarded a Molecular Physics Poster Prize at the National Training School in Theoretical Chemistry, held at the University of Oxford.

Congratulations to Eduardo Nieto who has been awarded an extra year of funding from CONACyT.

Congratulations to Dr Craig Johnston who has been awarded a 5-year Royal Society University Research Fellowship to conduct research at St Andrews, Scotland.

Professor Lloyd-Jones FRS receives Royal Society of Chemistry Pedler Award 2018 for his "Mechanism-informed design of significant practical improvements to the Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reaction”

Professor Lloyd-Jones FRS  announced as a panel member (Chemistry) for the Assessment Phase of REF2021.

Congratulations to Katherine Geogheghan  who has been appointed to Nature journals as an Editor, to start March 2018

2017

Congratulations to Chris Nottingham and Eduardo Nieto Sepúlveda who have both been awarded the best Poster Prize at the Eli Lilly Erl Wood 50 Years Celebratory Symposium and at the 15th International Congress of Young Chemists, respectively.

Congratulations to Thomas West who has been awarded the SCI oral prize for his lecture at the 2nd annual EaStCHEM Early Career Researcher conference. 

Congratulations to Katherine Geogheghan who has been awarded runner-up prize for her lecture at the Joseph Black Conference 2017. 

Congratulations to Dr Tom Corrie and Dr Ruth Dooley who have been offered positions at Syngenta and Evotec, respectively. As well as Dr Alba Collado for being awarded a Spanish Juan de la Cierva Fellowship. 

2016

Congratulations to Katherine Geogheghan for being awarded a best poster prize at the RSC SCI Challenges in Catalysis for Pharmaceuticals and Fine Chemicals conference in London.

Congratulations to Dr Carl Poree (PhD 2015) who has been appointed a Teaching Fellow in Chemistry at Trinity College Dublin.

Congratulations to Ariana Jones for being awarded second place poster prize at the 2016 Scottish NMR User's Group (SNUG) Firbush Meeting.

Congratulations to Paul Cox for being awarded first prize for his lecture “Protodeboronation - a mechanistic insight” at the RSC Physical Organic Postgraduate Meeting, held at Syngenta, UK.

Congratulations to Marc Reid for being awarded the physical and analytical chemistry prize for his lecture titled "Capturing Fast Organic Reactions: New Approaches to Stopped Flow Kinetics” at the Royal Society of Chemistry Early Career Symposium, held at the University of Strathclyde.

Congratulations to Alex Cresswell for being awarded the organic chemistry prize for his lecture titled “Room Temperature Gold-Catalysed Arylation of Heteroarenes” at the Royal Society of Chemistry Early Career Symposium, held at the University of Strathclyde.

Congratulations to Katherine Geogheghan for being awarded a best lecture prize at the 2016 Organic Chemistry Firbush Meeting.

Congratulations to Katherine Geogheghan for being awarded a best poster prize at the annual Joseph Black Conference in Edinburgh.

Congratulations to two postdocs in the group, Dr Alex Cresswell and Dr Marc Reid, for each being awarded prestigious fellowships. Alex has been awarded a Royal Society URF and Marc a Leverhulme Fellowship.

2015

Congratulations to Jorge Gonzalez for winning the participants' prize at the RSC Organic Division Poster Symposium in London. His poster was entitled "MIDA boronate hydrolysis: a tale of two mechanisms."

Congratulations to Paul Cox for winning the best lecture prize at the AZ PhD review day.

Nick Taylor was awarded the "best oral presentation" prize at the USIC 2015 conference for his lecture titled "Main Group Lewis Adducts: Fundamental Studies and Applications in Synthesis”

Congratulations to Matt Robinson for winning the best poster prize at the 2015 organic chemistry Firbush conference for his poster entitled "Mechanisms of Catch and Release Catalysis."

Many congratulations go to Dr Carl Poree for passing his Ph.D. viva with Professor John Blacker of the University of Leeds. 

Many congratulations go to Dr Robert Cox for passing his Ph.D. viva with Professor Simon Woodward of the University of Nottingham. 

Congratulations to Paul Cox and Tom Corrie for winning first and second prize respectively for their presentations at the first annual Joseph Black Conference in Edinburgh. 

Congratulations to Marc Reid who has been selected for the International Isotope Society Wiley Young Scientist Award for his PhD research on hydrogen isotope exchange. Marc will give an invited lecture on this work at the 12th International Symposium on the Synthesis and Applications of Isotopes and Isotopically Labelled Compounds in June at Princeton University.

Professor Lloyd-Jones has been elected to the fellowship (FRSE) of Scotland's National Academy of Science and Letters.  Professor Lloyd-Jones will sign the Roll Book of The Royal Society of Edinburgh (1783-date) at the New Fellows Induction day in May.

Eric Keske, currently completing his PhD with Professor Cathy Crudden at Queens University, Canada, has been awarded a highly prestigious 24 month NSERC postdoc fellowship to join the Lloyd-Jones group. We look forward to welcoming Dr Keske to Edinburgh later this year.

Congratulations to Robert Cox who will be joining Astrazeneca in April as part of their physical organic chemistry group.

2014

Congratulations to Liam Ball who has been appointed an assistant professor at the University of Nottingham starting July 2015. Liam also won the Faculty of Science best PhD thesis prize. 

Professor Lloyd-Jones FRS receives an honorary doctorate from Huddersfield University “for his contributions to organic chemistry”. Lloyd-Jones was an undergraduate at Huddersfield (1985-1989) where he was educated and inspired by the renowned Physical Organic chemist Professor Mike Page (pictured) and colleagues in the School of Applied Sciences.  Also at the graduation ceremony  was Katherine Geogheghan (M.Chem. Hons., First Class), who will join the Lloyd-Jones group as a PhD student this September.

Congratulations to Liam Ball who is one of 45 finalists (out of over 540 applicants from around the world) for the 2014 Reaxys Prize.

Congratulations to Robert Cox for winning the poster prize at the AZ PhD review day.

Congratulations to Paul Cox for winning the best 2nd year PhD presentation at the 2014 Organic Section Firbush Meeting.

Marc Reid is awarded a Carnegie Trust Grant to join us in January 2015 as a new post-doctoral researcher.

Professor Lloyd-Jones is a 2014 RSC Tilden Prize winner

Dr Alex Cresswell joins the Lloyd-Jones group as a new post-doctoral research assistant after a 2 year postdoctoral stay with Professor Scott E. Denmark at the University of Illinois.

2013

Congratulations to PhD student Carl Poree for winning a best poster prize at the Recent Advances in Synthesis and Chemical Biology XII meeting at the CSCB in Dublin

The majority of the group have now relocated to Edinburgh and are enjoying the new surroundings! We look forward to the rest of the group joining us in January.

The group reunion is enjoyed by all. A mini-symposium in the morning exhibited work from previous and current members of the group, which was followed by lunch at the Riverstation.

Congratulations to Alastair Lennox as he has won a "Springer Outstanding Thesis" award. Springer has now published his thesis in a series dedicated to recognising outstanding Ph.D. research.

Professor Lloyd-Jones FRS to become an ERC Advanced Investigator.

Professor Lloyd-Jones FRS has been appointed to the Forbes Chair of Organic Chemistry at The University of Edinburgh. He will take up the position in October this year.

Another double success for the group. Congratulations to PhD students Nick Taylor and Robert Cox for winning the runner-up lecture prize, and best poster prize, respectively, at the annual RSC Physical Organic Chemistry Postgraduate Meeting hosted by Syngenta at their UK Research Site in Jealott's Hill.

Professor Lloyd-Jones has been elected to the fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS) for  "fundamental contributions to the study of mechanisms of organic reactions that are important in the arsenal of synthetic chemists." Professor Lloyd-Jones will present a new fellows lecture, and afterwards sign the Charter Book (1660-date) at the admissions day in July.

A double success for the group at the Syngenta Poster Competition (University of Bristol)! Congratulations to Robert Cox and Joe Tate for winning the runner-up prize and the competitor's prize respectively.

The Awards Committee of the Royal Society of Chemistry's (RSC) Organic Division has selected Prof Lloyd-Jones to be the recipient of the 2013 RSC Physical Organic Chemistry Medal and UK Lectureship, for his creative work in the investigation of reaction mechanisms in organic and organometallic chemistry. Prof Lloyd-Jones will deliver a lecture at up to four universities within the UK over the period September 2013 to May 2014.

William Savage awarded an EPSRC undergraduate vacation Bursary to spend 10 weeks in the Lloyd-Jones laboratories this summer.

Congratulations to Dr Joe Renny (PhD student 2006-2010), currently enjoying a postdoc with Prof David Collum at Cornell, who has been offered and accepted a position as a Research Chemist at Dow Chemical USA.

2012

Congratulations to Alastair Lennox (PhD student 2008-2012) who has received a Faculty of Science Commendation for his doctoral thesis entitled "Organotrifluoroborate Preparation, Coupling and Hydrolysis".

Congratulations to Liam Ball who has won a 2012 Syngenta scholarship! This highly competitive award, which is given to three final year Ph.D. chemists annually, consists of a cash prize and conference allowance.

The group welcomes two new Ph.D. students: Paul Cox, a former project student in the group, and Jorge Gonzalez, who has joined us under tenure of a prestigious scholarship from the Mexican National Council for Science and Technology.

Many congratulations go to Dr Bertram Ong for passing his Ph.D. viva with Dr. Niek Buurma of the University of Cardiff. Bertram received a Chemopoly cake!

Many congratulations go to Dr Alastair Lennox for passing his Ph.D. viva with Professor Andrew Whiting of the University of Durham. Alastair was delighted to be presented with a cupcake periodic table!

Periodic table of cupcakes

Alastair Lennox is one of 45 finalists for the 2012 Reaxys Prize. As such he will attend the ACS meeting in Philadelphia in August.

Our recent publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition (Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 51, 548-551, 2012) in which we report on a novel mechanism of amide cleavage under mild and neutral conditions, already featured in Chem. & Eng News and Nature "News and Views", has now been featured in Angewandte Chemie in an article entitled "A New Twist on Amide Solvolysis".

Our recent publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition (Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 51, 548-551, 2012) in which we report on a novel mechanism of amide cleavage under mild and neutral conditions, already featured in Chem. & Eng News in an article entitled "New Twist On Amide Activation" has now been featured in Nature "News and Views" in an article entitled "Organic chemistry: Stabilizers cause instability".

2011

Our recent publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition (Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 51, 548-551, 2012) in which we report on a novel mechanism of amide cleavage under mild and neutral conditions, has been featured in Chem. & Eng News in an article entitled "New Twist On Amide Activation".

Alastair Lennox wins a poster prize at the SCI "Challenges in Catalysis for Pharmaceuticals and Fine Chemicals III" meeting in London for his poster entitled "Aryl trifluoroborates vs aryl boronic acids in Suzuki-Miyaura coupling".

Geri Echue wins a poster prize at the ChinaNano 2011 conference, recently held in Beijing, China.

Dr. Gareth Owen-Smith wins the Thieme sponsored poster prize at the 16th IUPAC International Symposium on Organometallic Chemistry Directed Towards Organic Synthesis (OMCOS 16) held in Shanghai, for his poster entitled "Towards Predictive Catalysis".

Bertram Ong receives an award from the Alumni foundation for his upcoming visit to China, where he will attend the 16th IUPAC International Symposium on Organometallic Chemistry Directed Towards Organic Synthesis (OMCOS 16) in July.

Many congratulations to Dr David Sale, currently enjoying a postdoc with Prof Donna Blackmond at Scripps, who has been offered and accepted a position as a Physical Organic Chemist at Syngenta, where he will be reunited with another GCLJ group graduate, Dr Alan Robinson.

Congratulations to Alastair Lennox who won Runner up Prize for the lecture he gave at the University of Bristol's third year research symposium.

Many congratulations to Dr M Paz Munoz, former postdoc in the Lloyd-Jones group (2004-2009) and currently at IQOG-CSIC in Madrid, who has accepted the position of Lecturer at The University of East Anglia (UEA) Norwich, beginning Sept 2011. En route from Madrid to Norwich, she will return to the Lloyd-Jones lab for a 3 month stay as a "visiting academic"

Dr Louise Evans (PhD student 2007-2011) receives the Faculty of Science Commendation for her doctoral thesis entitled "Ion-Pairing in Allylic Alkylation".

2010

A double success at the Pfizer Poster competition, where Alastair Lennox won First Prize at the national event (held at the RSC in Burlington House, London) and the runner-up prize at the Bristol event.

Many congratulations go to Dr Louise Evans for passing her Ph.D. viva with Professor Pat Guiry of University College Dublin. Louise has already started work as a Postdoc on an NERC-funded project to prepare organonitrate precursors for study of atmospheric chemistry, with Professor Dudley Shalcross and Prof Lloyd-Jones.

Alastair Lennox wins the Best Lecture Prize in the Understanding Chemistry category of the RSC Younger Members Symposium held in Manchester, for his presentation entitled "Are aryl trifluoroborates better than aryl boronic acids in Suzuki-Miyaura coupling".

Professor Lloyd-Jones is appointed as the new chair for the RSC Physical Organic Chemistry group. He has taken over from Dr N Asaad (Chemagination) who has served for the last three years.

Ph.D. student Alastair Lennox wins a prize for his lecture titled titled "Aryl Trifluoroborates in Suzuki-Miyaura Coupling: The Roles of Endogenous Aryl Boronic Acid and Fluoride" given at the RSC Summer Symposium at Bristol.

A panel comprising chemists from the Process Research and Development groups of the GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Syngenta met in August and selected Professor Lloyd-Jones as the 2010 winner of the UK Prize for Process Chemistry Research in recognition of his "work using physical organic chemistry to understand reaction mechanisms". Professor Lloyd-Jones will give a lecture at the annual SCI Process Development Symposium in Cambridge in December, where the prize will be formally awarded by the SCI.

Alastair Lennox (third year PhD student), who was awarded a University of Bristol Alumni Postgraduate Travel Grant to attend the IUPAC 20th International Conference on Physical Organic Chemistry (ICPOC-20), held in Korea 22-27 August, won not one, but two prizes for his poster entitled "Aryl Trifluoroborates in Suzuki-Miyaura Coupling: The Roles of Endogenous Aryl Boronic Acid and Fluoride".

Our recent publication in Environmental Science & Technology (vol. 42, in press, 2010), in which we report on a collaboration with Prof Dudley Shallcross to measure hydroxy radicals in the indoor environment, has been featured in Chem. & Eng. News in an article entitled "To track an oxidant"

Many congratulations go to Dr Joe Renny for passing his Ph.D. viva with Professor Barry Lygo of the University of Nottingham. Joe soon flys out to Israel to work with Professor David Milstein at the Weizmann Institute as a Postdoc.

Our recent publication in Angewandte Chemie International Edition (Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 49, 5156-5160, 2010) in which we report on the mechanism of palladium catalysed cross-coupling of aryl trifluoroborates with aryl halides, and which we show to proceed via the boronic acid, has been featured in Chem. & Eng News in an article entitled "Mechanism of Suzuki-Miyaura Coupling Revealed".

Dr David Sale (PhD student 2006-2010) receives the Faculty of Science Commendation for his doctoral thesis entitled "Mechanistic Aspects of Palladium Catalysed Allylic Alkylation Employing the Trost Standard Ligand".

Dr Alvaro Gordillo joins the Lloyd-Jones group as a new post-doctoral research assistant on a prestigious Marie-Curie fellowship.

Our recent paper entitled "Aryl Trifluoroborates in Suzuki-Miyaura Coupling: The Roles of Endogenous Aryl Boronic Acid and Fluoride" has been chosen as a "Hot Paper" by the Editors of Angewandte Chemie for its importance in a rapidly evolving field of high current interest.

Alastair Lennox receives an award from the Alumni foundation for his upcoming visit to South Korea, where he will attend The International Conference of Physical Organic Chemistry (ICPOC) in August.

Congratulations to Dr David Sale for passing his Ph.D viva with Dr John M Brown FRS of Oxford University. David will soon join the group of Prof D G Blackmond at the Scripps Research Institute as a postdoc.

Professor Lloyd-Jones identified as the successor to Professor Tom Simpson FRS as Head of Organic and Biological Chemistry at Bristol, on his retirement in 2012.

Dr Waldemar Czaplik joins the Lloyd-Jones group as a new post-doctoral research assistant on a prestigious DAAD fellowship.

2009

Funding (£120k) is secured for the third phase of a highly successful research programme, awarded by AstraZeneca and a Knowledge Transfer Partnership in the area of Chemoinformatic Analysis of Transition Metal Catalysis.

Joe Renny wins the poster prize at the SCI "Challenges in Catalysis for Pharmaceuticals and Fine Chemicals II" meeting in London, for his presentation titled "Newman-Kwart O-S Rearrangement of Aryl-O-thiocarbamates: Dramatic Reduction in Reaction Temperatures via Pd Catalysis".

Our recent paper entitled "Hindered Ureas as Masked Isocyanates: Facile Carbamoylation of Nucleophiles under Neutral Conditions" has been chosen as a "Hot Paper" by the Editors of Angewandte Chemie for its importance in a rapidly evolving field of high current interest.

Congratulations to Dr Alan Robinson for passing his Ph.D viva with Dr David Carbery of Bath University. Alan is currently enjoying life in Reading working for Syngenta.

Our recent paper entitled "The Newman-Kwart Rearrangement of O-aryl thiocarbamates: Dramatic Reduction in Reaction Temperatures via Pd Catalysis" has been chosen as a "Hot Paper" by the Editors of Angewandte Chemie for its importance in a rapidly evolving field of high current interest.

Dr Jennifer Slaughter wins a prize for her poster entitled "New reactivity via Palladium(II)-catalyzed Difunctionalisation of Alkenes" at OMCOS 15, Glasgow, UK

Dr Gareth Owen-Smith wins a prize for his poster entitled "Dramatic Ligand and Counterion Effects in Allylic Alkylation" at ESOC 16, Prague, Czech Republic.

Joe Renny (3rd year PhD student) wins 2009 Bristol ChemLabS Postgraduate Teaching Prize for his contributions towards undergradutate laboratory demostrating and tutoring.

Dr Vincent Brunet joins the Lloyd-Jones research group as a new post-doctoral research assistant.

The recent investigation into palladium catalyzed asymmetric allylic alkylation employing the 'Trost Standard Ligand' (see 2009 Publications) has been highlighted by Stuart A. Borman in Chemical and Engineering News. The article titled 'A Tale of Two Catalysts' features both the Lloyd-Jones and Norrby investigation and recent studies into iridium catalyzed asymmetric allylic alkylation by John F. Hartwig and co-workers (University of Illinois).

Joe Renny (3rd year PhD student) wins a runner up prize at the Pfizer Organic Chemistry Poster Competition, University of Bristol.

PhD students Joe Renny and David Sale BOTH win prizes for their lectures titled titled "The Newman-Kwart Rearrangement" (JSR) and "Mechanistic Investigations into Palladium Catalysed Allylic Alkylation Employing the Trost Standard Ligand" (DAS) given at the Bristol Final Year PhD Research Symposia.

6 years in the making.... Dr Emane Filali passes her PhD viva with Prof. J. M. J. Williams (University of Bath).

On the eve of her departure to pastures new (IQOC, Madrid) veteran postdoc Dr Paz Muñoz is awarded the best lecture prize at the inaugural Bristol Postdoctoral Chemistry Symposium for her presentation 'Isotopic Labelling - A Useful Tool for Mechanistic Studies on the Pd Diamination of Dienes'.

York Schramm passes his Masters examination in chemistry at the University of Basel and is awarded top grades for both his thesis and his oral presentation of the research work he conducted in the Lloyd-Jones laboratories.

A recent paper by "Team Pd" (directed by Professors Lloyd-Jones and Booker-Milburn) entitled "Room Temperature Pd-catalyzed C-H Activation: ortho-Carbonylation of Aniline Derivatives" has been chosen as a "Hot Paper" by the Editors of Angewandte Chemie for its importance in a rapidly evolving field of high current interest.

2008

Congratulations to Dr Sophie Purser for passing her D. Phil. viva, with Dr. Bruno Linclau from the University of Southampton. Sophie obtained her D. Phil from the University of Oxford under the supervision of Prof. Véronique Gouverneur.

Joe Renny wins a prize for his poster entitled "Newman-Kwart O-S Rearrangement of Aryl-O-thiocarbamates: Molecularity Investigated by Isotope Labelling " at the Young Physical Organic Chemists' Residential Meeting 2008, Castleton.

Dr Emily Tan passes her PhD viva, with Dr Paul Davies from Birmingham University. Emily will travel to the University of Wisconsin, Madison to take up a post-doctoral position with Prof. Clark Landis.

Dr Sophie Purser joins the Lloyd-Jones research group as a new post-doctoral research assistant.

Prof. Guy Lloyd-Jones has been named the "2009 Bristol Myers Squibb Lecturer in Organic Synthesis" at M.I.T.

Prof. Guy Lloyd-Jones to receive a 5 Year Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, starting August 2008. The Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award is an award to outstanding scientists holding posts at UK universities. It is administered by the Royal Society and jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the UK Office of Science and Technology; the scheme aims "to give universities additional support to attract key researchers, with great potential or outstanding achievement, to this country or to retain those who might seek to gain higher salaries elsewhere".

Dr Paz Muñoz has been awarded the prestigious Ramón y Cajal contract with the Spanish Ministry of Science. More details to follow!

Professor Lloyd-Jones to receive the Royal Society of Chemistry RSC Award in Organic Reaction Mechanisms for 'outstanding work on transition metal catalysed processes that has provided insight into several major carbon-carbon bond forming reactions'. The award will be presented in November

Prof. Guy Lloyd-Jones will become the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Molecular Catalysis A: Chemical.

Alan Robinson (3rd year PhD student) wins 1st Prize at the Pfizer Organic Chemistry Poster Competition, University of Bristol. Previous group winners: Jenny Slaughter (2007, 1st Prize), Ali Hester (2005, 1st Prize), Neil Hodnett (2002, 1st Prize), Rob Woodward (2001, 2nd Prize) and Sue Stephen (2000, 2nd Prize).

Prof. Clark Landis (University of Wisconsin, Madison) visits the Lloyd-Jones group.

Funding is secured for a new programme (£0.36 M) in amine synthesis in collaboration with Prof. Roger Alder FRS and Dr Craig Butts for which the EPSRC will contribute £308,351. The project is entitled "Exceptionally Strong, Neutral, Enantiomerically Pure Diamine Bases" and aims to prepare enantiomerically enriched forms of 15, 16- diazatricyclo[9.3.1.14,8] hexadecanes which Prof. Alder has predicted to be highly basic (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2005, 127, 7924–7931).

2007

Dr Jennifer Slaughter passes her PhD viva, with Dr Christopher Frost from Bath University.

William Dennis passes his MSc(R) viva, with Dr Nick Tompkinson from Cardiff University.

Funding (£437k) is secured for the second phase of a highly successful research programme, awarded by AstraZeneca (£0.80m in total), in the area of Chemoinformatic Analysis of Transition Metal Catalysis (see Group News 1 March 2006).

The group engage in their heaviest labelling experiment to date as Dr Paz Muñoz prepares 108Pd sigma-alkyl palladium complexes in high isotopic purity (>99 %).

Dr Paz Muñoz wins a prize for her poster entitled "Strong Acid-Promoted Dealkylative Lactonisation of Allyl Malonates" at ESOC 15, Dublin, Ireland.

After a false start, Group Members descend to the depths of the earth and scale muddy 'mountains' at the Group Conference, Forest of Dean, UK.

Prof. Guy Lloyd-Jones joins the IUPAC 2009 Scientific Committee as the theme coordinator for "Synthesis & Mechanism."

Final year PhD student Jennifer Slaughter wins First Prize at the Bristol Pfizer Poster Competition for her poster titled "Investigations of the Mechanistic Aspects of Indium-Mediated Homoallylic Vinylcyclopropanation."

After intense competition, Dr Natalie Fey secures one of just a handful of the annually awarded and highly prestigious 5 year EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowships. This funding will allow her to continue work on the Ligand Knowledge Base and also allow her to begin an ambitious and independent new programme in chemoinformatic analysis, which will be in collaboration with the Lloyd-Jones group and AstraZeneca.

Funding is secured for a major new programme (£ 0.66 M) in catalysis, to which the EPSRC will contribute 80 % (£ 0.55 M). The project, titled "Development of New Catalytic Protocols for Alkene Difunctionalisation", is in collaboration with Prof. Kevin Booker-Milburn at Bristol and Prof. Michel Gagné (University of North Carolina, Chapel-Hill, USA). The development of new Pd and Pt-catalysed alkene functionalisation reactions will be conducted in the Booker-Milburn Laboratories, whilst detailed mechanistic studies into the palladium-catalysed diamination of dienes and alkenes will be conducted in the Lloyd-Jones Laboratories.

Louise Evans is awarded a highly prestigious University Scholarship to assist her in her forthcoming studies towards a PhD degree at Bristol in the Lloyd-Jones Research Group.

Prof. Guy Lloyd-Jones is invited to spend a week at Muenster University, Germany (22 - 28th April 2007) hosted by Prof. Dr Martin Oestreich as part of the International Research Training Group Muenster and Nagoya, during which time he will deliver short courses on the study of reaction mechanism and kinetics to German and Japanese PhD students and postdocs.

2006

Dr Paz Muñoz gives a lecture entitled "Palladium Catalysed Cyclisations and Related Reactions: Kinetic and Mechanistic Aspects" at the III Simposium de Investigadores Jóvenes held at Institut Català d'Investigació Química (ICIQ), Tarragona, Spain.

Past and current group members gathers for a sumptuous dinner at Colley's Supper Rooms to celebrate the first 10 trailblazing years of the GCL-J Research Group. Many thanks to everyone who made it such a great evening and especially to Dr Tyler-Mahon for organising it. Please do keep in touch and for those who could not make it to this reunion, you only need to wait until 2016....

Dr Robi Margue passes his PhD viva, with Dr Joe Harrity from Sheffield University.

Emily Tan (2nd year PhD student) gives a lecture titled "Palladium Catalysed Isomerisation of Alkenes" at the RSC Organic Reaction Mechanisms Meeting held at GlaxoSmithKline, Tonbridge, UK.

Dr Gareth Owen-Smith passes his PhD viva, with Dr AnnMarie O'Donoghue from Durham University.

Group Members caught mackerels for lunch, unwanted dog fishes and a big bull huss at the Group Conference on the Devonshire Coast, England, UK.

Dr Ali Hester passes her PhD viva, with Dr Iain Coldham from Sheffield University.

A major new programme, funded by AstraZeneca (£ 0.33 M), in the area of Chemoinformatic Analysis of Transition Metal Catalysis begins at Bristol. The programme is being conducted by Postdoctoral Research Assistants, Dr Natalie Fey and Gareth Owen-Smith, in the laboratories of Prof. Guy Lloyd-Jones, Prof. Guy Orpen and Dr Jeremy Harvey.

Prof. Guy Lloyd-Jones receives an invitation to visit the Czech Academy of Sciences under the auspices of their prestigious Invited Lecturer Series at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry.

 

2005

Starting from January 2006, Prof. Guy Lloyd-Jones will become an Editor of the Journal of Molecular Catalysis A.

Dr Ian Shepperson and Dr Paz Muñoz each give a lecture, on the preparation of novel P-based ligands, at the Ligbank Midterm Review meeting at Lyme Park, UK. The mid-term review was well received and the EU has agreed to fund the second term of the LigBank project.

Gareth Owen-Smith (3rd year PhD student) gives a lecture titled "Dimerisation Properties of N-Heterocyclic Carbene Ligands" at the RSC Organic Reaction Mechanisms Meeting held at AstraZeneca, Charnwood, UK.

The communication "Rate Enhancement by Ethylene in Ru-catalysed Ring-closing Metathesis of Enynes: Evidence for an 'Ene-then-yne' Pathway that Diverts through a Second Catalytic Cycle" by Prof. Guy Lloyd-Jones, Robi Margue, and Dr Hans de Vries, accepted today by Angewandte Chemie, is awarded VIP (Very Important Paper) Status. Only less than 5% of manuscripts receive such a positive recommendation.

Emane Filali, Jenny Kent, Robi Margue, Dr M. Paz Muñoz, Gareth Owen-Smith, Dr Ian Shepperson and Emily Tan attend and present posters at the 13th IUPAC Symposium on Organometallic Chemistry Directed Towards Organic Synthesis (OMCOS-13).

Prof. Lloyd-Jones has been elected as President of the International Scientific Committee of ESOC, for the period 2005-2007.

Dr Philip Wall joins the research group of Dr Marisa C. Kozlowski, University of Pennsylvania, as a post-doctoral research fellow.

At least half of the Group Members suffer severe sunburn at the Group Conference on the Pembrokeshire Coast, Wales, UK.

Dr Philip Wall passes his PhD viva, with Dr Richard Brown from University of Southampton.

Dr Mandy Tyler-Mahon passes her PhD viva, with Dr Simon Woodward from Nottingham University.

Dr M. Paz Muñoz is awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain.

Prof. Lloyd-Jones gives a Plenary Lecture at the 40th Bürgenstock Meeting on Stereochemistry.

Prof. Lloyd-Jones is invited to join the Editorial Advisory Board of Beilstein Journal Of Organic Chemistry.

Ali Hester (3rd year PhD student) wins 1st Prize at the Bristol Pfizer Poster Symposium.

2004

Dr Paul Slatford passes his PhD viva, with Prof. Jim Anderson from Nottingham University.

Prof. Lloyd-Jones invited to join the International Advisory Board of The European Journal Of Organic Chemistry.

The new GCL-J Research Group website goes online!

Dr M. Paz Muñoz joins the Lloyd-Jones Research Group as a new post-doctoral research assistant.

Emane Filali and Gareth Owen-Smith (2nd year PhD students) present posters at the European Young Chemists Conference; Emane Filali wins 3rd prize at the conference Poster Competition.

Ali Hester (3rd year PhD student) is selected to present her work on the anionic thia-Fries rearrangement at this year's Pfizer Organic Chemistry Poster Symposium which is being held on Wednesday 8 December at the Le Meridien, Picadilly, London.

Ali Hester (poster presentation) and Robi Margue (oral presentation) attend the RSC Organic Reaction Mechanisms Group Post-Graduate Conference at Syngenta, Huddersfield.

Ali Hester and Robi Margue (2nd year PhD students) attend and present posters at the 17th IUPAC Conference on Physical Organic Chemistry (ICPOC-17) in Shanghai, China.

Mandy Tyler-Mahon and Philip Wall (3rd year PhD students) attend and present posters at the 15th International Conference on Organic Synthesis (ICOS-15) in Nagoya, Japan.

The Lloyd-Jones Research Group visit The Welsh Whisky Company in Penderyn, South Wales.

Prof. Guy Lloyd-Jones is awarded the RSC Corday Morgan Medal.