Lithium (Li, Element 3) Lithium, first member of the group 1 alkali metals, was discovered in 1817 by Johan August Arfwedson. It’s been around since the dawn of (astronomical) time- both stable isotopes, Li6 and Li7, being among a small handful of elements created in the Big Bang.1Terrestrially its highly abundant in seawater (up to

Gin is rapidly becoming the nations favourite tipple. Its undergone a modern renaissance with familiar trade names such as Gordon’s, Plymouth and London and multiple artisan distilleries appearing country-wide. It’s even drawn synthetic organic chemists out of the lab and into the refineries. This week at our 5th Winter Process Chemistry Conference in Manchester UK

Figure: 1 The idea of using transition metal chemistry in a cellular setting might at first seem counterintuitive- biological conditions are challenging with respect to stability, efficiency and catalyst (not to mention patient) poisoning. Having said that many important intracellular processes are modulated by transition metals complexed in metalloproteins, with functions including storage and transport

At the Scientific Update OPRD conference in Milan earlier this month, Xiaohu Deng from Kura Oncology discussed a pyrimidine-derived diazo intermediate that exists predominantly in the tautomeric ‘tetrazole’ form at equilibrium in solution.[1] The compound was shown as a putative retrosynthetic building block for synthesis of a J&J P2X7 antagonist (Figure 1).[2] I’d not come

Antibacterial chemotherapy before the turn of the nineteenth century really was a brutal business. A fine line between killing bacteria or the host organism- the human population. Mercury and bismuth based ointments and elixirs were available from apothecaries and administered by quack doctors as remedies, most notably for syphilis- a sexually transmitted bacterial infection caused

One of the first encounters I had with complex structures and challenging organic synthesis was a course I took on the synthesis of antibiotics as an undergraduate chemist at Bath university almost thirty years ago. These molecules and I had had a love hate relationship for much of my early childhood, having consumed what must

I am delighted to share with you the announcement of a new award and a ‘call for nominations’. The ‘1st Dr Margaret Faul Women in Chemistry Award‘ is intended to recognize and highlight outstanding contributions by young women to research in organic chemistry. The prize provided by Thieme includes an award of € 5,000. For more

Scientific Update is delighted to announce the appointment of Dr John Studley, formerly Head of Process Chemistry for Vertex Pharmaceuticals, UK. John will join the team at Scientific Update in August 2018 as Scientific Director bringing over 20 years’ experience in drug discovery, process chemistry and scale up, having previously worked for Rhone-Poulenc, Oxford Asymmetry and Vertex

We had a fantastic turn out for our #OPRDUS18 Conference in Clearwater, Florida last month. It was great to see our speakers, exhibitors and attendees and the feedback we received was excellent. Thank you for coming along! Our Technical Director Dr Will Watson opened the conference and we invited Dr Paul Murray and Dr André de

Where can DoE fit in process development? Are you using DoE to its full potential? A common misconception with experimental design in chemistry is that its use comes once a process had been planned and tested, just before commercialisation. In fact, DoE is arguably more useful at the start of a process for efficiently screening