Silicon-containing Building Blocks

In collaboration with Enamine, Ukraine, we have several projects seeking to develop more efficient synthetic methodologies to silicon-containing building blocks relevant to drug discovery. Our approach is guided by computational chemistry and chemical space mapping to make more informed decisions in the lab. This work is primarily funded through an EPSRC New Investigator Award “Silicon is the New Carbon: Leveraging Digital Chemistry to Access Silicon-Switch Molecules”.

Faster Catalyst Optimisation

When optimising a new reaction with a homogenous catalyst, the choice of ligand is one of the most important optimisation process parameters, but where do you start and where do you end? There are thousands of commercially available ligands, and optimisation of these is usually driven by chemical intuition or brute force. We are developing algorithmic approaches to catalyst optimisation that aim to improve efficiency and decrease the number of reactions required for optimised conditions. This work has received funding from The Royal Society and The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Automating Challenging Chemistry

Modern approaches to chemical automation are enabling higher throughput than ever before. However, the scope of chemistry that can be fully automated is limited, meaning the same linchpin reactions are repeatedly used, limiting accessible chemical space. We are developing new approaches to chemical automation that remove these limitations, leveraging VLA models and machine learning to accelerate development and mimic human actions. This work has received funding from The Royal Society.