Dr Sami Lakhdar spent a week, from 4th to 8th June 2018, at the University of Southampton, teaching photoredox catalysis to Master students. He also gave a lecture about his research activities at the chemistry department. This visit provided an opportunity to develop ideas with Professors Harrowven, Linclau and Brown and their chemistry teams about Caen-Southampton cross-channel collaborations.
Two projects emerged from these exchanges:
The Linclau group has developed efficient approaches for the multigram synthesis of polycyclic scaffolds. In order to selectively functionalize those scaffolds, a collaboration with Caen was developed during a visit of Dr Sami Lakhdar to Southampton in June 2018 and followed up during the Launch Event. As a result, a photocatalytic approach is being evaluated in the laboratory by Diego Collin and Mariana Manso. In parallel, the development of fluorinated molecular scaffolds is being conducted in collaboration with Professor Lequeux’s team with Clément Gonnot preparing fluoroalkenes as precursors for the scaffolds.
The second project is dedicated to the synthesis of original phosphorus containing scaffolds from aromatic precursors synthesized in the Harrowven laboratories. It involves the addition of phosphine oxides under visible light photocatalysis. Ryan Bennett, a chemist at Southampton, is currently working on the synthesis of precursor scaffolds which will then be developed using photocatalytic reactions conducted at the LCMT in Caen.
