Congrats to Skaggs Oxford Scholar and Engle lab member, Omar Apolinar, who successfully passed his viva (thesis defense) at Oxford to complete his program, simultaneously earning a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Scripps Research and a D.Phil. in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford. In the Engle’s lab, Omar expanded the scope of native directing groups in nickel-catalyzed olefin diarylation and developed the first enantioselective three-component diarylation of unactivated terminal and internal olefins. At Oxford, Omar performed research under the joint mentorship of Profs. Simon Aldridge and Véronique Gouverneur, developing novel Ca–F complex for nucleophilic fluoride delivery. Congrats Dr. Dr. Apolinar!

Together with the Sharpless, Blackmond, and Liu labs, as well as the teams at Enamine and Pfizer, in a ChemRxiv pre-print this week, we explore a family of intriguing chemicals with largely unannotated reactivity, alkyl sulfonyl fluorides. Under Pd^II/Pd^IV catalysis, we unlock the ambiphilic reactivity of alkyl l sulfonyl fluorides with olefins to access unique substituted cyclopropanes.

This was a fun collaboration spanning many years made possible a by a great team, including Yilin Cao, Warabhorn (Por) Rodphon, Turki Alturaifi, Al Vicente Riano Lisboa, Hermione Ren, Job Struijs, Hui-Qi Ni, and several industrial collaborators. Congrats!

For a link to the ChemRxiv pre-print, click here: https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/672b9b3cf9980725cf547804

Madison, Yilin, and Keary were featured in two local TV segments promoting Scripps Research Discovery Day at Fleet Science Center, November 10, 2024, noon-4:00 pm. In celebration of Scripps Research’s centennial, the event will feature >50 graduate students and postdocs, 12 different hands-on learning activities, and topics ranging from neuroscience to drug discovery. Check it out!

After several months working jointly between the Engle, Blackmond, and Baran labs on organonickel catalysis, Job Struijs wraps up his time at Scripps Research. Job made a huge impact during a short time bringing a mechanistic perspective to numerous different projects. Job will now return to Oxford to complete his D.Phil. with Profs. Veronique Gouverneur and Simon Aldridge. Thanks for all of your hard work, Job!