Congrats to Luke Oxtoby, who successfully defended his thesis this week, becoming the eighth Ph.D. graduate from the Engle lab. Luke’s research addressed an important problem by establishing the use of (co-catalytic) transient directing groups in palladium-catalyzed alkene functionalization. Next month, Luke will begin a position as a process chemist at Sterling Pharma Solutions in Germantown, Wisconsin. Congratulations Dr. Oxtoby!

The final version of our paper describing the directed, nickel-catalyzed syn-1,2-alkylsulfenylation of unactivated alkenes has been accepted for publication in Chemical Science and appears online this week. Building upon our earlier study on carbosulfenylation, this method accommodates C(sp³) nucleophiles for the first time, allowing for simultaneous C(sp³)–S and C(sp³)–C(sp³) bond formation . Congrats to graduate students Zi-Qi and Hui-Qi, as well as our undergraduate intern Wen-Ji.

For a link to the paper in Chemical Science, click here: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/sc/d2sc01563c

As a reminder, a pre-print of the paper was deposited in ChemRxiv in March: https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/6233b0c08ab3732b56687bad