Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/Z534134/1
Title:	Aromatic rings as flat-packed precursors for complex heterocycles
Principal Investigator:	Donohoe, Professor T
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:	AstraZeneca
Department:	Oxford Chemistry
Organisation:	University of Oxford
Scheme:	Standard Research TFS
Starts:	01 January 2025	Ends:	31 December 2027	Value (£):	488,183
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Catalysis & Applied Catalysis Chemical Synthetic Methodology
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Chemicals Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
This project seeks to solve the challenge of making complex '3 dimensional' molecules (here heterocycles) that are of interest and of use to the pharmaceutical industry. The proposed solution is to transform flat '2-dimensional' aromatic compounds into stereochemically and functionally diverse target molecules in just one step. The route that will be developed to transform readily available aromatic compounds into complex heterocycles uses catalysis to promote a dearomatisation (essentially here a reduction) reaction. This approach will revolutionise the way that such complex targets are made and give rapid access to molecules that were hitherto unobtainable. Here, the utilisation of very low loadings of a metal catalyst to allow an otherwise impossible or extremely difficult transformation is in itself a valuable and worthwhile goal that reduces the environmental impact of synthetic chemistry and is clearly of great interest to both academia and industry. We have plans to optimise the processes that are developed further so that they can use smaller amounts of easily available metal catalysts. This project will study all aspects of the catalytic dearomatisation reaction and in so doing will understand and exploit it fully. A team of academic collaborators and an industrial project partner (AstraZeneca) has been assembled and this will ensure that the work can expand to follow all worthwhile directions and also retain a focus on producing industrially relevant outputs. For example, we have the possibility to collaborate with specialist academic chemists as well as having access to the enormously diverse set of expertise found in the chemical industry.
Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Impacts
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Further Information:
Organisation Website:	http://www.ox.ac.uk