Research focuses on three areas:

1) Mechanistic studies 2) Isotope probes 3) Development of catalysts and reagents based on main-group elements (P, S, B, Si, F) for organic transformations.

These three research areas are often interlinked: we aim to untap the potential of chemical reactions and reagents by combining reaction monitoring (NMR, UV, IR), isotope labeling and kinetic studies to explain why they behave in the way they do.

Our main research programme combines main-group and organofluorine chemistry. We seek to understand why common and abundant main-group chemical reagents that transfer fluorine-containing groups lack of application with respect to their non-fluorinated congeners. In particular, we want to extract the factors that govern their stability and reactivity under conditions of application.

We will then use these insights to: 1) generate empirical scales of reactivity; 2) develop a single synthetic platform to target a diverse set of fluorinated molecules and reach new chemical space; 3) inform asymmetric organocatalytic approaches to access enantioenriched fluorochemicals. The high relevance of small fluorine-containing molecules as drug candidates and the intel generated through this programme is of broad interest, particularly to academia and the pharmaceutical industry.