David Procter | |
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Born | David John Procter 1970or1971(age 52–53) [1] |
Alma mater | University of Leeds [2] (BSc., PhD) |
Known for | Radical cascades Sulfonium cross-coupling Copper catalysis |
Awards |
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Scientific career | |
Fields | Organic Chemistry Catalysis |
Institutions | The University of Manchester |
Thesis | The development of a selenoxide-based asymmetric oxidation of sulfides to sulfoxides (1995) |
Doctoral advisor | Prof. Christopher Rayner |
Website | www |
David John Procter is a British chemist and a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at The University of Manchester. [2] His research is based on organic chemistry and catalysis, specifically on radical cascades, sulfonium cross-coupling and copper catalysis. [5] [6]
Procter completed his Bsc in 1992 at University of Leeds. [2] Upon graduation, he continued to read for his Doctor of Philosophy degree with Prof. Christopher Rayner on The development of a selenoxide-based asymmetric oxidation of sulfides to sulfoxides and successfully gained his PhD in 1995. [7]
Procter completed his postdoctoral research with Prof. Robert Holton at Florida State University in Tallahassee, United States before moving to the University of Glasgow in 1997 as a Lecturer. [2] [8] In February 2004, he was promoted to the Senior Lecturer position and in September in the same year, was promoted to Reader in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Manchester. [2] He was promoted to Professor in October 2008. [8]
Procter's research is generally on organic synthesis and catalysis chemistry and is specifically based on Radical cascades, Sulfonium cross-coupling and copper catalysis. [5] [6]
Apart from research and lecturing, Procter has an established career fellowship (2015 - 2020) at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and an author profile in Angewandte Chemie. [1] [2] Procter was also a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow (2013 - 2014) and is the lead author of Organic Synthesis using Samarium Diiodide: A practical guide. [2] [9] He was the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council panel chair in March 2017, January 2013 and September 2011 and was the Head of Organic Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Manchester from 2011 to 2014. [1]
Prof. Procter has carried out a wide variety of research on the efficient construction of organic molecules. In 2015, he led a research on the synthesis of novel tri-cyclic organic compounds inspired by the antibacterial, pleuromutilin via SmII-mediated radical cyclization cascades of dialdehydes, prepared by a one-pot, copper catalyzed double organomagnesium addition to β‐chlorocyclohexenone. [10] This was the first time that important analogues of the antibacterial was prepared, which previously was unable to be synthesized using the naturally occurring product. [10]
Prof. Procter has also invented metal-free coupling processes that may has decrease(d) the reliance of expensive and supply-risk transition metals. Examples include metal-free alkylation and arylation of benzothiophenes, [11] metal-free synthesis of benzothiophenes by twofold C–H functionalization, [12] and new reagents for metal-free C–H trifluoromethylthiolation in Trifluoromethyl sulfoxides. [5]
Major Research Publications by Prof. David J. Procter (2015–present): [5]
Samarium(II) iodide is an inorganic compound with the formula SmI2. When employed as a solution for organic synthesis, it is known as Kagan's reagent. SmI2 is a green solid and solutions are green as well. It is a strong one-electron reducing agent that is used in organic synthesis.
In organometallic chemistry, acetylide refers to chemical compounds with the chemical formulas MC≡CH and MC≡CM, where M is a metal. The term is used loosely and can refer to substituted acetylides having the general structure RC≡CM. Acetylides are reagents in organic synthesis. The calcium acetylide commonly called calcium carbide is a major compound of commerce.
In organic chemistry, a coupling reaction is a type of reaction in which two reactant molecules are bonded together. Such reactions often require the aid of a metal catalyst. In one important reaction type, a main group organometallic compound of the type R-M reacts with an organic halide of the type R'-X with formation of a new carbon-carbon bond in the product R-R'. The most common type of coupling reaction is the cross coupling reaction.
Atropisomers are stereoisomers arising because of hindered rotation about a single bond, where energy differences due to steric strain or other contributors create a barrier to rotation that is high enough to allow for isolation of individual conformers. They occur naturally and are important in pharmaceutical design. When the substituents are achiral, these conformers are enantiomers (atropoenantiomers), showing axial chirality; otherwise they are diastereomers (atropodiastereomers).
In chemistry, transfer hydrogenation is a chemical reaction involving the addition of hydrogen to a compound from a source other than molecular H2. It is applied in laboratory and industrial organic synthesis to saturate organic compounds and reduce ketones to alcohols, and imines to amines. It avoids the need for high-pressure molecular H2 used in conventional hydrogenation. Transfer hydrogenation usually occurs at mild temperature and pressure conditions using organic or organometallic catalysts, many of which are chiral, allowing efficient asymmetric synthesis. It uses hydrogen donor compounds such as formic acid, isopropanol or dihydroanthracene, dehydrogenating them to CO2, acetone, or anthracene respectively. Often, the donor molecules also function as solvents for the reaction. A large scale application of transfer hydrogenation is coal liquefaction using "donor solvents" such as tetralin.
The Negishi coupling is a widely employed transition metal catalyzed cross-coupling reaction. The reaction couples organic halides or triflates with organozinc compounds, forming carbon-carbon bonds (C-C) in the process. A palladium (0) species is generally utilized as the metal catalyst, though nickel is sometimes used. A variety of nickel catalysts in either Ni0 or NiII oxidation state can be employed in Negishi cross couplings such as Ni(PPh3)4, Ni(acac)2, Ni(COD)2 etc.
In organic chemistry, organocatalysis is a form of catalysis in which the rate of a chemical reaction is increased by an organic catalyst. This "organocatalyst" consists of carbon, hydrogen, sulfur and other nonmetal elements found in organic compounds. Because of their similarity in composition and description, they are often mistaken as a misnomer for enzymes due to their comparable effects on reaction rates and forms of catalysis involved.
Asymmetric hydrogenation is a chemical reaction that adds two atoms of hydrogen to a target (substrate) molecule with three-dimensional spatial selectivity. Critically, this selectivity does not come from the target molecule itself, but from other reagents or catalysts present in the reaction. This allows spatial information to transfer from one molecule to the target, forming the product as a single enantiomer. The chiral information is most commonly contained in a catalyst and, in this case, the information in a single molecule of catalyst may be transferred to many substrate molecules, amplifying the amount of chiral information present. Similar processes occur in nature, where a chiral molecule like an enzyme can catalyse the introduction of a chiral centre to give a product as a single enantiomer, such as amino acids, that a cell needs to function. By imitating this process, chemists can generate many novel synthetic molecules that interact with biological systems in specific ways, leading to new pharmaceutical agents and agrochemicals. The importance of asymmetric hydrogenation in both academia and industry contributed to two of its pioneers — William Standish Knowles and Ryōji Noyori — being awarded one half of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
In chemistry, π-effects or π-interactions are a type of non-covalent interaction that involves π systems. Just like in an electrostatic interaction where a region of negative charge interacts with a positive charge, the electron-rich π system can interact with a metal, an anion, another molecule and even another π system. Non-covalent interactions involving π systems are pivotal to biological events such as protein-ligand recognition.
Organogold chemistry is the study of compounds containing gold–carbon bonds. They are studied in academic research, but have not received widespread use otherwise. The dominant oxidation states for organogold compounds are I with coordination number 2 and a linear molecular geometry and III with CN = 4 and a square planar molecular geometry.
Hydrogen auto-transfer, also known as borrowing hydrogen, is the activation of a chemical reaction by temporary transfer of two hydrogen atoms from the reactant to a catalyst and return of those hydrogen atoms back to a reaction intermediate to form the final product. Two major classes of borrowing hydrogen reactions exist: (a) those that result in hydroxyl substitution, and (b) those that result in carbonyl addition. In the former case, alcohol dehydrogenation generates a transient carbonyl compound that is subject to condensation followed by the return of hydrogen. In the latter case, alcohol dehydrogenation is followed by reductive generation of a nucleophile, which triggers carbonyl addition. As borrowing hydrogen processes avoid manipulations otherwise required for discrete alcohol oxidation and the use of stoichiometric organometallic reagents, they typically display high levels of atom-economy and, hence, are viewed as examples of Green chemistry.
Conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) are a sub-class of porous materials that are related to structures such as zeolites, metal-organic frameworks, and covalent organic frameworks, but are amorphous in nature, rather than crystalline. CMPs are also a sub-class of conjugated polymers and possess many of the same properties such as conductivity, mechanical rigidity, and insolubility. CMPs are created through the linking of building blocks in a π-conjugated fashion and possess 3-D networks. Conjugation extends through the system of CMPs and lends conductive properties to CMPs. Building blocks of CMPs are attractive in that the blocks possess broad diversity in the π units that can be used and allow for tuning and optimization of the skeleton and subsequently the properties of CMPs. Most building blocks have rigid components such as alkynes that cause the microporosity. CMPs have applications in gas storage, heterogeneous catalysis, light emitting, light harvesting, and electric energy storage.
A tosylhydrazone in organic chemistry is a functional group with the general structure RR'C=N-NH-Ts where Ts is a tosyl group. Organic compounds having this functional group can be accessed by reaction of an aldehyde or ketone with tosylhydrazine.
Trifluoromethylation in organic chemistry describes any organic reaction that introduces a trifluoromethyl group in an organic compound. Trifluoromethylated compounds are of some importance in pharmaceutical industry and agrochemicals. Several notable pharmaceutical compounds have a trifluoromethyl group incorporated: fluoxetine, mefloquine, Leflunomide, nulitamide, dutasteride, bicalutamide, aprepitant, celecoxib, fipronil, fluazinam, penthiopyrad, picoxystrobin, fluridone, norflurazon, sorafenib and triflurazin. A relevant agrochemical is trifluralin. The development of synthetic methods for adding trifluoromethyl groups to chemical compounds is actively pursued in academic research.
The Catellani reaction was discovered by Marta Catellani and co-workers in 1997. The reaction uses aryl iodides to perform bi- or tri-functionalization, including C-H functionalization of the unsubstituted ortho position(s), followed a terminating cross-coupling reaction at the ipso position. This cross-coupling cascade reaction depends on the ortho-directing transient mediator, norbornene.
In organometallic chemistry, palladium-NHC complexes are a family of organopalladium compounds in which palladium forms a coordination complex with N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs). They have been investigated for applications in homogeneous catalysis, particularly cross-coupling reactions.
Paul Knochel is a French chemist and a member of the French Academy of Sciences.
Dhevalapally B. RamacharyFTAS, FRSC, FASc, FNASc, also known as D. B. Ramachary, is an Indian chemist and professor at the School of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad. He has made numerous contributions in various fields of chemical science.
Mark Stradiotto is a Canadian chemist. He is currently the Arthur B. McDonald Research Chair and the Alexander McLeod Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at Dalhousie University.
René Peters is a German chemist and since 2008 Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Stuttgart.