Department of Chemistry

Deborah A. Longbottom is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Chemistry and a Fellow of Homerton College. She was previously a Senior Research Associate in the group of Professor Steven V. Ley, which followed post-doctoral studies at The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego, California and experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Deborah lectures courses in the Department to third and final year students ('Structure and Reactivity' and 'Medicinal Chemistry' respectively) and is involved in several outreach projects, including the 'Salters' Chemistry Festival', 'Headstart' and 'Goldsmiths' courses, as well as being part of the organisation team for 'The International Chemistry Olympiad 2009'. Her research interests encompass both natural product synthesis and method development and most recently, a fruitful research collaboration with the O'Reilly group at Warwick University has led to interesting investigations on the synthesis and utility of amino-acid functionalised polymers formed by RAFT polymerisation. Further explorations in this area are ongoing.

Selected Publications

L-Proline Functionalized Polymers Prepared by RAFT Polymerization and their Assemblies as Supported Organocatalysts A. Lu, T. Smart, T. Epps, III,  D. A. Longbottom and R. K. O'Reilly, Macromolecules, 2011, 44, 7233.

Organocatalytic Tuneable Amino Acid Polymers Prepared by Controlled Radical Polymerization A. C. Evans, A. Lu, C. Ondeck, D. A. Longbottom and R. K. O'Reilly, J. Polym. Sci., Part A, 2009, 47, 6814.

Highly Diastereoselective Desymmetrisation of Cyclic meso-Anhydrides and Derivatisation for Use in Natural Product Synthesis A. C. Evans, D. A. Longbottom, M. Matsuoka, J. E. Davies, R. Turner, V. Franckevicius and S. V. Ley, Org. Biomol. Chem., 2009, 7, 747.

Practical Organocatalysis Using (S)- and (R)-5-Pyrrolidin-2-yl-1H-tetrazoles: A Review D. A. Longbottom, V. Franckevicius, S. Kumarn, A. J. Oelke, V. Waschlowski and S. V. Ley, Aldrichimica Acta, 2008, 41, 3.

Practical Synthesis of (S)-5-Pyrrolidin-2-yltetrazole, Incorporating Efficient Protecting Group Removal by Flow-reactor Hydrogenolysis V. Franckevicius, K. R. Knudsen, M. Ladlow, D. A. Longbottom and S. V. Ley, Synlett, 2006, 889.

Total Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Halipeptins A and D and Analogues K. C. Nicolaou, D. E. Lizos, D. W. Kim, D. Schlawe, R. G. de Noronha, D. A. Longbottom, M. Rodriguez, M. Bucci and G. Cirino, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2006, 128, 4460.

New Uses for the Burgess Reagent in Chemical Synthesis: Methods for the Facile and Stereoselective Formation of Sulfamidates, Glycosylamines, and Sulfamides K. C. Nicolaou, S. A. Snyder, D. A. Longbottom, A. Z. Nalbandian and X. Huang, Chem. Eur. J., 2004, 10, 5581.

Total Synthesis of Polycephalin C and Determination of Absolute Stereochemistry at the 3'',4'' Ring Junction D. A. Longbottom, A. J. Morrison, D. J. Dixon and S. V. Ley, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2002, 41, 2786.

Total Synthesis of the Plasmoidal Pigment Physarorubinic Acid, a Polyenoyltetramic Acid D. J. Dixon, S. V. Ley and D. A. Longbottom, J. Chem. Soc., Perkin Trans. 1, 1999, 2231.