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.

Tis the season! The Engle lab hosted its first annual Holiday Party, complete with warm beverages, home-cooked confectionaries, and a white elephant gift exchange. Zhen is still deciding what is more difficult for a non-native English speaker, Taboo or Cards Against Humanity.

Happy Holidays from the Engle group!

After several days of hard work, Jorg and Allison Meyer successfully installed the freshly refurbished Grubbs-type solvent purification system (formerly belonging to the great K.C. Nicolaou) in the Engle lab for regular use. Without a moment to waste, members of the lab have already put the SPS to the test and have been dispensing various anhydrous solvents for the development of their new reactions!

For more information about the JC Meyer Solvent System, click here

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The Engle lab is excited to present its very own Vacuum Atmospheres NexGen Inert Atmosphere glove box — under argon atmosphere! With our solvent purification system nearly finished, the lab is prepared to carry out any and all air- and moisture- sensitive reactions with ease.

For a quick tutorial on how to operate a NexGen glovebox, click here.

TSRI teamed up with Jorg Meyer of  JC Meyer Solvent Systems to put together an instructional video about Grubbs-type solvent purification systems: how they work, how to maintain them, and how to refill them.

Check out the video below.

The group’s pumpkin carving skills were put to the test on Halloween. Candy was eaten, cider was imbibed, and fun times were had by all. Miraculously, Hermione was still white at the end of the night.

In addition to our research, the Engle lab has been hard at work promoting biomedical research, and chemistry in particular, in the community. This week, we hosted the Cal State Long Beach ACS Student Affiliates Chapter in our lab for demonstrations and activities as part of their TSRI visit. We also pitched in at the National Foundation for Autism Research Halloween Carnival, where we ran two of the booths with games for kids and families.

The Engle lab was featured in this week’s issue of New & Views, TSRI’s online newsletter. To read the article, click here.

For the accompanying video profile, see below: