Dom Willcox

A postdoctoral position, funded by @leverhulme.ac.uk for up to 36 months, is available to join my group @edinburghchem.bsky.social. The project focuses on biomimetic approaches to natural product synthesis.

Deadline: 28th August 2025.

elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

We are very happy to announce that our collaboration with the Garden Group, Joseph Cockcroft's paper 'Highly Acyclic Selective Cobalt Catalysts for Butadiene Dimerization' has been published in ChemCatChem! You can read it here: doi.org/10.1002/cctc...
#chemsky #chemistry

🎉 Today’s the day! We're thrilled to be hosting our (Gen)AI in Education workshop, bringing together brilliant minds from 26 universities across the UK!

We’re diving into how generative AI is shaping the future of teaching, learning, and research — and we can’t wait to explore it together.💬🤖📚

Does @science.org have the technology for institutional log in that doesn’t put you back to the home page? All the other journals manage it… #science #chemsky

Some good news from the recent NSS survey. Chemistry at @heriotwattuni.bsky.social has been ranked 1st in Scotland based on Overall Satisfaction. Additionally, it is ranked 2nd in Scotland across all questions and 8th in the UK. It's great to see everyone's hard work recognised! #chemsky

As promised, postdoc positions at BristolUni.bsky.social available in homogeneous catalysis and computational chemistry exploring the replacement of palladium catalysts by Earth-Abundant Metals: www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

#ChemSky #CompChemSky #ChemJobs #UKChemJobs

Intermolecular sp3C‐H Metalation of Non‐Nucleophilic Brønsted Bases Using Simple Lewis Acids 2,6-Di-tert-butyl substituted pyridines (tBu2-py) are widely used non-nucleophilic Brønsted bases. Their ubiquity is due to their highly hindered basic site and chemically robust nature. Herein we re...

If you have ever used simple Lewis acids like AlCl3 and GaCl3 in your chemistry, you may be interested to learn how they react with non-nucleophilic bases. Anna did an amazing job with this and has discovered some really exciting new chemistry! Read the Accepted article in Angew. Chem. #chemsky

Absolutely ground-breaking work from the Grimme group. Looking forward to having a go!

Alchemy Frontier Fund 2025 now open (aichemy.ac.uk/aichemy-fron...). Apply for 2-year projects of up to £1.25m to advance the frontiers of AI for chemistry. Deadline = Sept 12th 2025. Webinar to launch the fund on June 18th. For information, email: funding@aichemy.ac.uk @ukri.org #EPSRC #AI

1,2-Acyl transposition through photochemical skeletal rearrangement of 2,3-dihydrobenzofurans Saturated heterocycles are commonly adorned with groups that influence their biological properties. Synthetic methods that transpose existing substituents on saturated heterocycles to multiple peripheral positions are therefore highly valuable. In this ...

Congratulations to Ryan and Moto on the publication of their 1,2-acyl transposition in 2,3-dihdyrobenzofurans in @science.org!

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

To be honest I hadn’t really thought of a broader scope. I am happy to be connected with anyone with connective tissue issues!

Does anyone know of anybody else who has Marfan’s Syndrome working within chemistry? I’d be interested in chatting with others with the condition to build up a little network. Marfan’s is a genetic disorder that affects connective tissues in the body (see more: www.marfantrust.org) #chemsky

LGBT+ toolkit This kit provides the tools for everyone to take part in positive change: employers, colleagues, and LGBT+ individuals.

We want everyone in the chemical sciences community to feel welcome, supported and valued, so we're sad to see some people seize on yesterday's supreme court ruling with anti-trans messages. Today, we're highlighting our resources on allyship for trans colleagues and friends
➡ rsc.li/4j6lojs

This is figure 1, which shows the synthesis of fluorochemicals from PFASs.

A paper in Nature presents a method for breaking down perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), environmental contaminants known as ‘forever chemicals,’ while recycling the fluoride contained within them. https://go.nature.com/3Rk1dCf #chemsky 🧪

Prof Ingleson is looking forward to speaking at the University of Gothenburg on Monday 7th April!

If you're interested in a break from the doom-and-gloom, may I recommend our article, online today @nature.com

A solution to the pyrazole alkylation problem, leveraging S-to-NR atom replacement. Skeletal editing has strategic value, outside of late-stage!

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

Uncover the fascinating world of #SiliconSwitch!🔍Our #synpacts article by Dominic Willcox explores the latest developments in syntheis of complex silyl heterocycles using 1,1-carboboration.

👉 thieme-connect.de/products/ejo...

Image of a phone screen with the text displayed: "The Journal of the American Chemical Society is now on Bluesky!"

We are now LIVE on #ChemSky – joining @pubs.acs.org, @acs.org, and @cenmag.bsky.social!

Follow us for the latest significant research from the world’s preeminent journal of chemistry and interfacing areas of science.

Learn more about JACS: buff.ly/efZCTEt

If you're near University of Oxford, Department of Chemistry on 11 March, come & hear Prof Mike Ingleson deliver the Royal Society of Chemistry Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson Prize lecture - 2 pm, ICL, Department of Chemistry.

Follow all your favorite @rsc.org journals now on Bluesky! Let the posting begin! 🥳🧪 #chemsky go.bsky.app/QAaTTZ3

Changes at Reading leave chemistry students worried about their future Students at every stage of their degrees feel left in the dark by course closures and changes in research focus

Although the University of Reading has decided not to close its chemistry department, it is still ending recruitment for MSc and MChem programmes and only supporting research aligned with allied health professions, dentistry, nursing and pharmacy.
www.chemistryworld.com/news/changes... #chemsky

IMO they are just fancy hotplates and not actually what you would consider automated apart from temperature control. I’m happy to be proven wrong though, as I’m looking for good commercial automation solutions.

go.bsky.app/GwH8tnF

🎉Our latest paper "Chemical space as a unifying theme for chemistry" by Jean-Louis Reymond is now published on Journal of Cheminformatics!

Read it here👉
jcheminf.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

#cheminformatics #chemical_space

a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on ALT: a cartoon says hey everybody an old man 's talking while bart simpson looks on

Bluetorial-A dream and a bit of a nightmare

Serving as Editor-in-Chief at Science was fascinating. I greatly enjoyed working with talented and committed editorial, news, graphics, and production staff. But the inside look into scientific publishing and AAAS was also deeply disillusioning.

Multifaceted Hidden Catalysis Revealed by Mechanistic Analysis of FeBr3‐Catalysed Arene Borylation Mechanistic analysis revealed the iron-catalysed C−H borylation of 2-phenylpyridine derivatives with 9-borabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane ([H-B-9-BBN]2) operates through hidden catalysis with the iron salt med...

A nice holiday present for us! Our most recent article has been accepted Angewandte @angewandtechemie.bsky.social Read it at the link below.
doi.org/10.1002/anie...

Borane‐Mediated Highly Secondary Selective Deoxyfluorination of Alcohols Borane-mediated deoxyfluorination of in situ generated N-H-O-alkyl-isoureas using Et3N ⋅ 3HF represents a novel approach to achieve a highly 2°-alcohol-selective substitution in preference to benzyli....

And another in the same week! Our collaboration with Prof Mike Ingleson has been published in Angewandte
@angewandtechemie.bsky.social as well. Read it below.
doi.org/10.1002/anie...

Borane‐Mediated Highly Secondary Selective Deoxyfluorination of Alcohols Organofluorine compounds are vital across multiple sectors, hence highly selective methods to install fluorine are of considerable importance. The deoxyfluorination of alcohols is a key approach to p...

Congratulations to Boron team members Mike Ingleson, Steve Thomas, Laura Winfrey on their recent Angewandte paper.

Congrats also to paper co-Author Dom Willcox, ex-Ingleson group, who has recently started as Assistant Professor at Heriot-Watt University.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Borane‐Mediated Highly Secondary Selective Deoxyfluorination of Alcohols Organofluorine compounds are vital across multiple sectors, hence highly selective methods to install fluorine are of considerable importance. The deoxyfluorination of alcohols is a key approach to p....

Want to do a secondary-selective deoxyfluorination reaction? In our latest paper, we exploit the unusual reactivity of boron and iso-ureas to achieve high secondary selectivity, just accepted in Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed.: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #ChemSky

A Crystalline NiX6 Complex High-valent nickel species are implicated as intermediates in industrially relevant chemical transformations and in the catalytic cycles of metalloenzymes. Although a small number of tetravalent NiX4 ...

We report the first stable hexavalent nickel complex! It's formed by reductive addition of three Be-Be bonds at nickel(0), producing Ni(BeCp)6
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...