To celebrate all of the recent successes and unwind, the Engle Lab held its first BYOBG (Bring-Your-Own-Board-Game) and BBQ Night. Meats were Grilled, games were played, and we learned who should never be trusted in Werewolf.

Congratulations to Kin on his News & Views piece, “Precision Pruning of Molecules,” which appeared in todays issue of Nature. The article highlights a recent breakthrough by the research group of Prof. Huw M. L. Davies at Emory University, on the C2-selective C–H functionalization of linear aliphatic compounds (e.g., pentane).

To learn more, click here for Kin’s write-up and here for the original paper. To learn more about the NSF Center for Stereoselective C–H Functionalization, which helped sponsor the research, click here.

After scoring high-fives from Hermione, the authors of our recent hydroamination paper celebrated in style at Taegukgi Korean BBQ House. Massive food comas ensued.

Members of the Engle lab spent Saturday morning with group of visiting high school students as part of the Science Saturdays program, coordinated by the TSRI Graduate Program. Miram impressed the group with the iodine clock experiment, John performed our patented “light metal salts on fire” demo, and Joe explained how refilling solvents can be substitute for leg day.

Congratulations to John, Kin, and Zhen on their recent paper entitled, “Directed, Regiocontrolled Hydroamination of Unactivated Alkenes via Protodepalladation,” the Engle lab’s first research publication! The manuscript appeared today in the online version of J. Am. Chem. Soc. Click here for a link to the article. Stay tuned for celebratory photos!

Member of the Engle lab played host to visiting students from the North County San Diego Bridges to the Future Program, coordinated between Cal State San Marcos, Palomar College, and MiraCosta College. The Bridges Program seeks to prepare students from underrepresented ethnic and racial groups who attend community colleges for a smooth transition into four-year universities. Engle lab members gave lab tours/demos and joined the Bridges students over lunch for a discussion of grad school, careers in science, and research.

Keary and 11  other faculty members at TSRI were named among San Diego’s “41 Most Influential Scientists” by the San Diego Union Tribune. Congrats to the entire TSRI community on this recognition!

To see the complete list and accompanying write-ups, click here.

Nothing says Happy Chinese New Year like pizza, wings, beer, and a little football. Clearly, Hermione’s preferred method of watching football is with her eyes closed.

The Engle lab welcomes its newest postdoc, Miriam O’Duill! Miriam recently received her Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Oxford, having studied transition-metal-catalyzed trifluoromethylation under the guidance of Prof. Veronique Gouverneur. Despite still suffering from jet lag from her long journey, Miriam was quick to display her technical savvy by quickly organizing her hood and is now ready to tackle an exciting new project in the Engle lab!

The Engle lab participated in an outreach event with the MJ Murdock Charitable Trust – Partners in Science Program. The Partners in Science Program provides opportunities for high school teachers to work with investigators in academic labs or in labs associated with other non-profit institutions to bring the knowledge and experience back to classroom, promoting hands-on science education.