Anderson Lab at UChicago Chemistry

Ha ha ha, it's jealousy! Next time we fire some up you're invited 💯

Largest-ever South Side Science Festival puts UChicago STEM in kids’ hands Annual event draws 700 UChicago scientists, 200 volunteers to share science demonstrations on campus

The largest-ever South Side Science Festival was a HUGE success! UChicago Chem Profs. John Anderson & Sarah King led 700 scientists and 200 volunteers who shared STEM activities with over 4,300 children & families from the Chicago area. Read how they made science STEM shine!
tinyurl.com/mr45rxaj

Materials Research Society Honors Professor Jiwoong Park with Prestigious Turnbull Lectureship

We are excited to announce that the Materials Research Society (MRS) has named Professor Jiwoong Park the 2025 recipient of the prestigious David Turnbull Lectureship for his outstanding contributions to the fundamental understanding and communication of materials science. shorturl.at/XfKPI

Deacylative Polyfluoroarylation via C–C Cleavage of Alkyl Ketones Polyfluoroarenes often exist in functional molecules; however, construction of alkyl–polyfluoroaryl bonds remains nontrivial, and the current approaches exhibit various limitations. Here we report the...

A collaboration between the Guangbin Dong and Scott A. Snyder research groups has reported a useful new method for chemical synthesis in Organic Letters. Link: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
#SyntheticChemistry #OrganicLetters #DongGroup #SnyderGroup #BondCleavage #Pharmaceuticals #uchicchemistry

2025 chemistry Nobel prize goes to the scientists behind metal–organic frameworks Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi take top prize for discovery and development of versatile materials with a huge surface area

Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi are this year's winners of the Nobel prize in chemistry for their work on MOFs – just a few grams of these materials can have the same surface area as a football pitch. Julia Robinson with the details.

Thank you to all the scientists and scientists-to-be who made Saturday's Southside Science Festival one for the books! @uchicagopme.bsky.social

Join us this coming Monday, October 6th at 2:00 p.m. for a special seminar sponsored by the Chicago Center for Theoretical Chemistry (CCTCh) where Prof Mark Pederson will present on the Fermi-Löwdin-Orbital (FLO) formulation. Full abstract/event info found here: events.uchicago.edu/event/254270...

New method improves the accuracy of machine-learned potentials for simulating catalysts

Published in PNAS, the Laura Gagliardi Group has revealed the Weighted Active Space Protocol (WASP), a powerful new algorithm that fundamentally improves the efficacy and accuracy in catalysis simulation, accelerating the discovery of next-gen catalysts for sustainable energy. shorturl.at/fQagQ

University of Chicago Announces 2025-2026 Chemistry Seminar Calendar Announced

BIG NEWS: The 2025-2026 UChicago Chemistry Seminar Series Lineup is OUT! This year our renowned series is stacked with some of the biggest names in the field! See the announcement and full lineup on our website - shorturl.at/XcWhF

🚨FEE WAIVERS!🚨

Sign up for our info sessions on Nov. 4 and Nov. 11th - anyone who registers and attends will get an application fee waiver!

chemistry.uchicago.edu/graduate-pro...

Excited to share Ningxin's last paper from the group now out in @rsc.org Chemical Science! Ningxin showed how the morphology of Cu-based CPs of TTFtt responds to TTFtt oxidation states. As Cu is much more redox active than Ni, there's also evidence of mixed valency.

pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

Update from Chicago. The situation is dire. Complete anarchy. Please send the national guard asap to put an end to this lawlessness

Very true!

Check out the group's newest paper, now out in @pubs.acs.org ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces. As inorganic chemists, we try to avoid chirality like the plague, but Lauren was able to show a strong NIR chiroptical response by capping our TTFtt lumiphores with BINAP ligands.

pubs.acs.org/articlesonre...

ACS announces 2026 national award winners The winners are being acknowledged for their outstanding achievements in chemistry across various fields in the discipline

Thrilled to see our name listed among this incredible group of awardees, particularly in inorganic chemistry!

Congratulations to all of the folks awarded, and gratitude to mentors and students. Particularly grateful for Harry who has inspired so much of our labs work.

cen.acs.org/people/award...

Reversible C–H Bond Activation of Unactivated Arenes by a Nickel-Silylene Complex A nickel-silylene complex is shown to reversibly activate benzene via C–H bond activation at ambient temperature. The benzene C–H bond formally adds across the Ni–Si core to form a nickel-silyl comple...

Reversible C–H Bond Activation of Unactivated Arenes by a Nickel-Silylene Complex - pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
So proud to congratulate first author Leon Gomm for his first paper in JACS. Thanks to Hui Zhu and Stefan Grimme for the ever helpful DFT calculations. @unibonn.bsky.social

Rapid Intermolecular C-H Activation of Aromatic Substrates at a Cationic, Electrophilic Molybdenum (VI) Nitrido Complex: Mechanistic Nuance in C-H Amination When the cationic, octahedral terminal nitrido complex of Mo(VI) supported by a diborate pentadentate ligand is generated in the absence of trapping nucleophiles, it rapidly activates the C(sp2)-H bon...

Rapid Intermolecular C-H Activation of Aromatic Substrates at a Cationic, Electrophilic Molybdenum (VI) Nitrido Complex: Mechanistic Nuance in C-H Amination | ChemRxiv - doi.org/10.26434/che...
Another opus from Chris 😎

🚨Just out in Nature!
We have offered a general method for 1,2-difunctionlization of arenes via a differential 1,2-diborylation!
rdcu.be/esXq8
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Congratulations to Jingfeng!

Accessing sulfonamides via formal SO2 insertion into C–N bonds - Nature Chemistry Despite recent advances in primary sulfonamide synthesis, approaches using primary amines as starting points for direct sulfonamide construction remain elusive. Now a formal SO2 insertion into the C–N...

Online today @natchem.nature.com - we show how to turn a deletion reaction into an insertion reaction:

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How do you turn a carbonyl into sulfur?

In this work, Zining from our lab developed a carbonyl-to-sulfur swap enabled by a rationally designed N′-alkyl-hydrazonamide (NAHA) reagent that promotes double C-C bond activation.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Carbonyl-to-sulfur swap enabled by sequential double carbon-carbon bond activation In drug development, replacement of a skeletal carbon with a sulfur atom can result in analogs of bioactive compounds with improved properties. Currently, the sulfur analogs are almost exclusively pre...

Out First Release in @science.org today, Zining Zhang in @donglab.bsky.social swaps out ketones for sulfur in saturated carbon rings through two modes of radical trapping www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Markovnikov-Selective Electrocatalytic Hydroalkylation Enabled by Metal–Ligand Cooperative Storage of H-Atom Equivalents The synthesis of 1,1-disubstituted olefins is an important transformation that classically uses strategies like Wittig chemistry or cross-coupling reactions. Here, we introduce an electrochemical method for the selective hydroalkylation of terminal alkynes to generate a variety of 1,1-disubstituted olefins. This approach utilizes a dihydrazonopyrrole Ni complex capable of storing a H2 equivalent (2H+ + 2e–) on the ligand backbone. This mild reaction uses electricity and a weak acid and thus tolerates amine and ketone functional groups which are sensitive to classic Wittig conditions. Mechanistic studies reveal the essential role of the ligand steric environment in dictating product regioselectivity. Calculations support an outer sphere alkyl radical addition instead of a Ni-centered reductive elimination mechanism which is commonly invoked for transition-metal hydroalkylation catalysts. Beyond its unique functional group compatibility, the scope of this reaction includes primary and secondary alkyl iodide electrophiles along with unactivated alkyne substrates. These findings underscore how metal–ligand cooperativity, particularly with ligand-based storage of protons and electrons, supports catalytic platforms which can be tuned for varied electrosynthetic applications beyond hydrogenation.

Following quickly on her defense, Maia's most recent paper on electrochemical alkyne hydroalkylation was just published in ACS Catalysis! We think this is nice complement to Wittig chemistry, with better compatibility for several functional groups.

pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

Britni Ratliff Honored with Swogger Award for Transformative Teaching UChicago Students Recognize Chemistry Professor for Impactful Collaborative Learning Model

Dr. Britni Ratliff has won this year's Swogger Award, chosen by UChicago's undergrads. Big congrats, Britni, on continuing our department's tradition of excellence! We're so proud of your dedication to fostering deeper learning.
chemistry.uchicago.edu/news/britni-...

Student Profile: Lauren McNamara

Our Student Profile series continues with Lauren McNamara, 2024 Merck Award winner & graduate student! We chat about how the Bay Area sparked an interest in STEM, to her current research on metal dithiolene complexes for bioimaging & quantum sensing

Read more: chemistry.uchicago.edu/news/student...

Last week the group celebrated Maia Czaikowski's thesis defense! She did an unsurprisingly incredible job, delivering a beautiful talk summing up all of her findings over 5 years. Congrats Maia!

Great news, glad to see this!

Nature Recognizes He Lab Publication as a 'Top 25 Life and Biological Sciences Article of 2024' Lab's Cellular Research Among Top Downloads

Nature Magazine has selected the Chuan He lab's study on a new gene regulation pathway via internal m7G modification as a "Top 25 Life & Biological Sciences Article of 2024"! Learn more about this significant new research: shorturl.at/B4WIh

Dr. Alex Cusumano Joins the University of Chicago Chemistry Department Faculty New Appointee Brings Expertise in Synthetic, Organometallic, and Computational Chemistry

The UChicago Department of Chemistry is thrilled to welcome Dr. Alex Cusumano to its faculty. His expertise in synthetic organic, organometallic, and computational chemistry will be a valuable asset to our research and educational initiatives. shorturl.at/hqRZK

Student Profile: Yizhen Jin A UChicago Chemist at the Intersection of Biology and Discovery

Discover the work of Yizhen Jin, a talented fourth-year grad student whose research focuses on the intersection of chemical synthesis and biological application. Read their story in the latest student profile! #UChicagoChemistry #StudentProfile #Science - chemistry.uchicago.edu/news/student...

The Jasrasaria Group @uchichemistry.bsky.social is recruiting postdocs! We will use theory and simulation to understand how microscopic interactions between atoms and electrons in materials dictate their macroscopic behaviors. Visit diptijasrasaria.com/contact to learn more. Reposts appreciated!