Hermione graduated with her master’s in chemistry from Northwestern University working with Prof. Regan J. Thomson. Just before joining the Engle lab, she did a summer internship with Prof. Jie Li at Soochow University.

Al received his master’s degree in chemistry at Michigan University. There, he worked in the group of Prof. Melanie Sanford.

Yiyao joins the lab after finishing his undergraduate degree at Nankai University where he worked under the guidance of Prof. Gong Chen. Yiyao was also a visiting student at UCLA in the Tang Lab. Welcome to the Engle Lab!

Today we bid farewell to Giada. After a successful summer research stay working on Cu-catalysis with Skyler and Katherine, Giada heads back to Colorado to finish her senior year at Montrose High School. Best of luck and keep in touch!

Keary has been selected as the recipient of the 2023 Leo Hendrik Baekeland Award by the The North Jersey Section of the American Chemical Society (NJACS). In Keary’s citation for the Baekeland award, NJACS cited the Engle lab’s specific achievements in the use of transition metal catalysts to advance the field of alkene functionalization. Since the group opened in 2015, methods and catalysts developed in the Engle lab have been adopted by academic and industrial labs across the world, streamlining access to a variety of useful products. Congratulations to Engle lab members past and present on this recognition!

For a link to the write up in the Scripps Research Magazine, see: https://magazine.scripps.edu/awards-and-honors/2023/online-exclusive/keary-engle-awarded-the-2023-njacs-leo-hendrik-baekeland-award/

This week, three new members joined the lab.

Katherine is a new PhD student. She did her undergraduate studies at Berkley with Prof. Sarpong and has been working at Gilead for the last few years.

Wenzhuo is an undergraduate intern visiting from Nankai University and will be exploring nickel catalysis with Nankai alumni, Wenji.

Shijin joins the lab as a visiting undergraduate student from Fudan University and will be working with Shenghua.

Welcome to the Engle Lab!

Today we celebrated the Engle Lab Anniversary with a lunch at the Sky Deck! It finally warmed up in San Diego, and we enjoyed sitting outside having a cold beer or an ice cream. We are excited to see what new discoveries the next year will bring!

Undergraduate intern Madeline Fitzgerald is visiting the lab from Davidson College. Madeline previously worked in the group of Prof. Hanna Key on the application of enzyme catalysis in organic reactions. She joins the lab as a SURF fellow and will be working with Amit and Madison on palladium catalysis. Welcome to the group, Madeline!

We are welcoming three new members of the lab.

Drason is a new PhD student. He did his undergraduate work with Prof. William Wuest at Emory University.

Calvin joins the lab as a visiting student from HKUST and will be exploring tungsten catalysis with Camille.

Giada is a rising senior at Montrose High School and is doing an internship over the summer working with Skyler on copper catalysis.

Welcome to the Engle lab!

Today we report a unique approach to heterocycle synthesis, in which a C(sp³)–H bond and a C(sp³)–X (X = N, O, or S) undergo catalytic coupling with an ambiphilic aryl halide under Pd(II)/Pd(IV) catalysis. The reaction leverages a C(sp³)–H activation/β-X elimination strategy for strong bond cleavage previously developed by our lab. The method can be used to prepare difficult-to-access non-proteinogenic amino acids from methionine and transfigure unstrained heterocyclic starting materials. Congrats to the entire project team: graduate student Hui-Qi, visiting undergrad Jing-Chen, and the fantastic group of collaborators from Pfizer!

Click here for a link to the paper in Angewandte Chemie, International Edition, click here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202306581

As a reminder, a pre-print of this work was deposited in May 2023: https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/645c06c6f2112b41e956d61a

In the lab’s most recent review article, Taeho and Omar summarize the state of play in asymmetric Pd- and Ni-catalyzed dicarbofunctionalization. This emerging suite of reactions has undergone rapid development in the last decade, yet there are numerous lingering problems remaining to address to unlock the full potential of this transformation in organic synthesis. Thanks to the editorial team at Synthesis for the invitation to contribute, and congrats to Taeho and Omar.

For a link to the publication in Synthesis, click here: https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/a-2108-9549

After 1.5 years of working in the Engle lab, we bid farewell to Anna! During her productive stay in the group, she worked on projects in collaboration with both Taeho and Wenji. We celebrated Anna’s achievements with a lab-wide lunch. Anna is graduating from Rancho Bernardo high school, and she will be starting her undergraduate studies at MIT in the fall. We wish Anna the best of luck in all her future endeavors!