Relevant Disciplines
Organic / Inorganic / Organometallic / Materials / Supramolecular Chemistry
My research interests are in synthetic organic, inorganic, organometallic and supramolecular chemistry. I am interested in the design and synthesis of new functional materials. I have expertise in a wide range of synthetic and spectroscopic techniques including NMR, IR, UV-vis and X-ray crystallography. Major areas of interest include:
CuAAC “Click” coordination chemistry. The mild and modular Cu(I)-catalyzed 1,3-cycloaddition of terminal alkynes with organic azides (the CuAAC “click” reaction) allows the ready formation of functionalised 1,4-disubstituted-1,2,3-triazole scaffolds and this has led to an explosion of interest in the coordination chemistry of these heterocycles. A diverse array of mono-, bi-, tri- and polydentate ligands incorporating 1,4-disubstituted-1,2,3-triazole units have been synthesised and characterised. Easy access to readily functionalised ligand architectures is of crucial importance in a range of different areas and we are exploiting these ligands for the development of new catalysts, metallo-pharmaceuticals, bio-imaging agents, metallosupramolecular architectures, and molecular machines.
Functional metallosupramolecular architectures. I am also interested in the engineering of functional molecular architectures via self-assembly. We have recently developed a range of methods to heterometallic and multicavity metallosupramolecular architectures as part of efforts to enhance the applications of these systems. In particular we are attempting to exploit these self-assembled cages as novel metallo-pharmaceuticals, for drug delivery and as nanoreactors for carrying out chemical transformations.
