Fern has published a paper on some work she did in her undergraduate project with Stephen Thomas at the University of Edinburgh. Steve’s group develops simple iron catalysts as alternatives to expensive platinum group metals. In this instance, they’ve applied their work to the synthesis of that ubiquitous drug ibuprofen. Congrats Fern! Click here toContinue reading “Fern’s paper (well, Stephen Thomas’ paper)”
Category Archives: Hurrahs
Fern is a winner!
Fern is doing a PhD in the Green Materials Laboratory. She’s a Principal’s Career Development Scholar, meaning she gets her feet wet in a chosen training area. In Fern’s case this is Entrepreneurship. She’s pretty good at this side gig, too! 500 quid for biodegradable tents! Huzzah!
A Full Paper on Iron
Macromolecules paper published! Congratulations to Laura and Jarret: Their full paper in Macromolecules has now been published. This paper expands our recent work on iron-mediated controlled radical polymerisation and raises some particularly interesting mechanistic questions. These catalysts are among the fastest and best controlled iron-based systems for ATRP. If you’d like to use them inContinue reading “A Full Paper on Iron”
Merry Christmas!
After a post-birthday day off, I come back to my office and my wonderful lab has done a simply amazing decorating job. Well done team! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
We’re 17! We’re 17!
The mysterious cabal of QS University Rankers have deemed us (i.e. the University of Edinburgh) to be the 17th best University in the known universe. That’s a pretty impressive accomplishment! This international reputation was a significant part of why I was inspired to come here in the first place, so it’s great to see thatContinue reading “We’re 17! We’re 17!”
Bright Club not Fight Club
WARNING: Bawdy language and hilarious jokes await! Click here to see a video of Mike on stage at The Stand in Edinburgh! Mike’s first chance to do stand-up comedy through the Bright Club was pretty awesome and highly enjoyable (for him – questionable for the audience). Enjoy!
D-FENCE!! D-FENCE!!
Congratulations to Gayan and Genny who both successfully defended their graduate and undergraduate theses last week. Gayan talked about his work on cyclodextrin-based polymer stars, including some interesting comparative studies on core-first vs. arm-first synthetic methodologies. Genny defended her efforts to synthesize a new family of monomers that we think have great potential in anti-microbialContinue reading “D-FENCE!! D-FENCE!!”
Glen Briand and MtA
Congrats to Glen Briand, my indium collaborator at Mount Allison University. We screened some of Glen’s indium complexes for activity in ring-opening polymerisations of cyclic esters when we were still back in Canada and a paper based on these results has just been accepted in the Journal of Organometallic Chemistry. I miss good ol’ Mt.Continue reading “Glen Briand and MtA”
TEDx Edinburgh (on YouTube!)
UPDATE: You can now see the video online! Check Mike out on YouTube! Tomorrow afternoon (Friday, February 22nd), Mike is giving a talk at the “Global Challenges Grounded Solutions” TEDx Edinburgh event. Entitled “Saving the World One Plastic Fork At a Time”, he will use his 12 minutes to explain what it is we actually doContinue reading “TEDx Edinburgh (on YouTube!)”
PEG-b-PLA
Congratulations to Christian Agatemor! His paper on the role of tacticity (the relative positions of stereocentres in a polymer chain) in the properties of amphiphilic block copolymers has been accepted for publication in Biomacromolecules. The work details the synthesis and characterization of a series of poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(lactic acid) star where we have systematically varied theContinue reading “PEG-b-PLA”
Green Materials Laboratory 