Several of the directed hydrofunctionalization reactions developed in our lab employ protodepalladation as one of the key steps. In this type of reaction, a C–Pd(II) bond is converted into a C–H bond and a free Pd(II) species under the action of a Brønsted acid. To shed light on this interesting and arguably underutilized elementary step, our former postdoc Miriam (now running an independent group at NUI Galway) has penned a Review article, which just appeared online today in Synthesis (click here). Congrats to Miriam on this contribution!

The Engle Lab hosted its fourth annual Pumpkin Carving Party and saw many fantastic artists carving pumpkins and pineapples. We also bid farewell to two extremely talented postdocs; De-Wei and Jose. De-Wei is off to UCLA to start a post doc with Yi Tang and Jose is off to Amgen. Thank you both for your many contributions to the group – we will miss you!

Hanh (Hannah) Nguyen is the newest undergraduate member of the Engle Lab and is joining us from down the street at UCSD. She is working with Tanner (G2) on carbonylation chemistry and wasted no time setting up some high throughput screening in Scripps Automated Synthesis Facility in her first week. Welcome Hanh!

After a productive summer in lab, Ziyang (Nick) heads back to USTC to start his junior year. Nick had a fun time exploring San Diego and was the star player at the Engle Lab summer beach outing volleyball game. We wish Nick good luck in his future chemistry and hope he’ll visit next year!