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Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry

 

Yusuf Hamied 1702 Professor of Chemistry

New Catalytic Strategies for Chemical Synthesis

Despite the changing face of chemistry, the importance of synthesis - the ability to generate molecules in a controlled fashion - has not diminished. However, the increasingly complex synthetic problems being posed by nature, medicine and materials demand new reactivity concepts and strategies in order to meet these challenges.

Our group is interested in the development of new catalytic strategies for chemical synthesis that engage novel reactivity concepts to enable the rapid generation of architecturally complex molecules and natural products. One of our key aims is to be able to construct natural products from simple building blocks in a single step, without the need for reactivity inducing functional groups and with the ability to control the stereochemistry.

In this way, we hope to be able to develop a chemo-catalytic equivalent to Nature's biosynthetic machinery that will enable us to build any molecule we want. Our approach to this is focussed on three main research programmes:

(A) metal catalyzed C-H bond functionalization,

(B) catalytic asymmetric synthesis using small molecule organic catalysts,

(C) cascade strategies for natural product synthesis.

In addition to this, many of the molecules that we are able to synthesise have interesting biological properties, and so we are also able to develop chemical biology applications from our synthetic chemistry projects.

Professor Gaunt discusses his research

Take a tour of the Yusuf Hamied Lab for Chemical Synthesis & Catalysis

Publications

Silyl Radicals as Single-Electron Reductants: α-Aminoalkyl Radical Formation via a Photocatalytic Oxidatively Initiated Radical Chain Process.
HC Waller, MJ Gaunt
– Journal of the American Chemical Society
(2024)
146,
25894
Modular Synthesis of Heterobenzylic Amines via Carbonyl Azinylative Amination
AA Rafaniello, R Kumar, RC Phillips, MJ Gaunt
– Angewandte Chemie
(2024)
Versatile, Modular, and General Strategy for the Synthesis of α-Amino Carbonyls.
J Liu, MJ Gaunt
– J Am Chem Soc
(2024)
146,
24699
Modular synthesis of α-branched secondary alkylamines via visible-light-mediated carbonyl alkylative amination
MA Smith, RJD Kang, R Kumar, B Roy, MJ Gaunt
– Chemical science
(2024)
15,
14888
A Modular Dual‐Catalytic Aryl‐Chlorination of Alkenes
B Li, A Bunescu, D Drazen, K Rolph, J Michalland, MJ Gaunt
– Angewandte Chemie International Edition
(2024)
63,
A Modular Dual‐Catalytic Aryl‐Chlorination of Alkenes
B Li, A Bunescu, D Drazen, K Rolph, J Michalland, MJ Gaunt
– Angewandte Chemie
(2024)
136,
A Modular Dual-catalytic Aryl-chlorination of Alkenes
M Gaunt, B Li, A Bunescu, D Drazen, K Rolph, J Michalland
– Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
(2024)
A Modular Dual-Catalytic Aryl-Chlorination of Alkenes.
B Li, A Bunescu, D Drazen, K Rolph, J Michalland, MJ Gaunt
– Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
(2024)
63,
e202405939
Modular Synthesis of Heterobenzylic Amines via Carbonyl Azinylative Amination.
AA Rafaniello, R Kumar, RC Phillips, MJ Gaunt
– Angew Chem Int Ed Engl
(2024)
e202408287
Multicomponent Synthesis of α-Branched Amines via a Zinc-Mediated Carbonyl Alkylative Amination Reaction
JM Phelps, R Kumar, JD Robinson, JCK Chu, NJ Flodén, S Beaton, MJ Gaunt
– Journal of the American Chemical Society
(2024)
146,
9045
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Research Group

Research Interest Groups

Telephone number

01223 336318

Email address

mjg32@cam.ac.uk