Dave Leigh

Dave Leigh

@profdaveleigh.bsky.social

President-elect @RSC.org; @RoyalSociety.org Research Professor & Sir Samuel Hall Chair of Chemistry @manchester.ac.uk, UK. European. molecules・machines・magic

1.9K followers266 following66 posts

Dave Leigh reposted

Royal Society of Chemistry
@rsc.org

Our president-elect @profdaveleigh.bsky.social has been in Beijing this week, speaking at an international symposium on chemistry and new energy, with discussions covering energy storage, materials innovation and international collaboration. He also took time to meet our @rsc.org China team...

Dave Leigh reposted

C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News)
@cenmag.bsky.social

Researchers at the University of Ulm have described the first autonomous walking small-molecule machine: a simple phosphate group. The walker travels along a hydroxy-paved molecular track using an alternating series of cyclization and ring-opening reactions. #chemsky 🧪

cen.acs.orgOne small step for phosphate, one giant leap for molecular machine-kindThe first chemically fueled small-molecule walker dances around a sugar molecule without falling off
Dave Leigh
@profdaveleigh.bsky.social

Helpful piece from @rsc.org putting recent @natrevchem.nature.com article on UK university chemistry into context, separating the genuine pressures facing a science that contributes >£60 billion a year to the UK economy from some misleading claims and misinterpreted evidence: rdcu.be/MGE1aCg8jQCa 👍

rdcu.berdcu.be
Royal Society of Chemistry@rsc.org

Read our new comment piece: 'Chemistry is vital for growth' - now live in @natrevchem.nature.com. We explore how UK chemistry is a strategically important national capability, drives growth, innovation and jobs, underpinning life sciences, clean energy and advanced manufacturing rdcu.be/MGE1aCg8jQCa

Dave Leigh
@profdaveleigh.bsky.social

Great cause! 😈

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social

Help! Parton Community Council has 60 days to raise £70k to buy Parton Kirk (resting place of James Clerk Maxwell). They plan to turn it into a visitor centre celebrating our great hero! The other buyers could turn it into long-term storage 😬 Even £5 would help 🙏🧪⚛️ www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding...

justgiving.comHelp raise £70000 to Save Parton Kirk – JustGiving CrowdfundingIʼm raising money to Save Parton Kirk. Support this JustGiving Crowdfunding Page.
Dave Leigh
@profdaveleigh.bsky.social

...“Concerning Demons... Is the production of an inequality of temperature their only occupation? No... demons can produce a difference in pressure by allowing all particles going in one direction while stopping all those going the other way. This reduces the demon to a valve” 😈 tinyurl.com/3ja25xfz

Dave Leigh reposted

Anna Demming
@annademming.bsky.social

Coal may have powered the industrial revolution but it also galvanised the science of thermodynamic efficiency because chemically fuelling stuff is hard...

chemistryworld.comMolecular ratchets: unlocking the chemistry of biological motionMotor proteins power everything from muscle contraction to bacterial swimming. While replicating their chemically fuelled directional motion in the laboratory has proved difficult, researchers are mak...

Dave Leigh reposted

Chemistry World
@chemistryworld.com

With football dominating summer headlines, the benefits of packing in slow-release carbohydrates before a big game are widely known – but how exactly motor proteins in muscles turn food energy into movement remains up for debate. Anna Demming explores: www.chemistryworld.com/features/mol...

chemistryworld.comMolecular ratchets: unlocking the chemistry of biological motionMotor proteins power everything from muscle contraction to bacterial swimming. While replicating their chemically fuelled directional motion in the laboratory has proved difficult, researchers are mak...

Dave Leigh reposted

Chemistry World
@chemistryworld.com

‘I find myself suddenly in unprecedented times where the federal government, which throughout my lifetime had been a staunch supporter of basic science as well as applied science, is turning in a different direction,’ Carolyn Bertozzi said. www.chemistryworld.com/news/latest-...

chemistryworld.comLatest White House move to politicise science funding provokes outrage among research leadersUS research community mobilising to push back on proposed rule that would give apparatchiks control of which research gets funded
Dave Leigh
@profdaveleigh.bsky.social

Knotting to see here in @jacs.acspublications.org pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/... 🪢 Congrats to Jiankang & Min!🎉🥂

pubs.acs.orgConformationally Switchable Molecular Trefoil Knot Assembled From 2,6-Bis(1,2,3-triazol-4-yl)pyridine (btp) Building BlocksWe report an efficient lanthanide-template synthesis of a conformationally switchable molecular trefoil knot assembled from three 2,6-bis(1,2,3-triazol-4-yl)pyridine (btp) ligand strands. Coordination of Lu3+ organizes three btp building blocks into a trimeric circular helicate that, upon subsequent ring-closing olefin metathesis, gives a trefoil knotted coordination complex in 73% yield over two steps. Subsequent demetalation with tetraethylammonium fluoride quantitatively affords the corresponding metal-free 87-atom-loop trefoil knot. The metal-coordinated and metal-free knots were characterized by NMR spectroscopy, high-resolution mass spectrometry, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The metalated and metal-free knots adopt substantially different conformations to each other, in both solution and the solid state. In the Lu3+-bound knot the btp units are directed inward to coordinate the metal center, with the strand conformation further stabilized by pyridine–naphthalene π-stacking. In the metal-free knot the btp motifs are rotated outward, with the conformation stabilized by triazole C–H···O hydrogen bonding and naphthalene–naphthalene π-stacking. Reversible metalation and demetalation cleanly interconverts the two knot conformations, establishing btp building blocks as a simple and versatile platform for responsive entangled or woven molecular topologies.
Dave Leigh
@profdaveleigh.bsky.social

It is the wrong choice to cut key staff in Chemistry at Nottingham, one of the best Chemistry Departments in the UK. They are responsible for educating & training the next generation of scientists who will deliver the skills, discoveries & industrial capacity on which high-value sectors depend. 1/2

Dave Leigh
@profdaveleigh.bsky.social

In @cp-chem.bsky.social tinyurl.com/3vmzatbh Maria @benjaminoacid.bsky.social @stefanborsley.bsky.social Fabio & @zashbridge.bsky.social show that driving a receptor out-of-equilibrium through chem fueling allows quantification of binding at concentrations where receptor is saturated at equilibrium😃

cell.comOut-of-equilibrium sensing with a chemically fueled molecular machineBiological adaptive receptors are driven out of equilibrium to change the detectable range of analyte concentrations. Here, a chemically fueled rotaxane information ratchet couples Zn(II) binding to c...

Dave Leigh reposted

The Guardian
@theguardian.com

Sadiq Khan urges Labour to campaign on rejoining EU at next election

theguardian.comSadiq Khan urges Labour to campaign on rejoining EU at next electionMayor of London says returning to EU now more desirable because of economic instability caused by Donald Trump Labour should go into the next general election promising to rejoin the EU, Sadiq Khan has said. The mayor of London has repeatedly made the case for joining the customs union and single market, but went much further on Wednesday night by suggesting the party should promise full membership at next ballot. Continue reading...

Dave Leigh reposted

Giacomo Crisenza
@gemcrisenza.bsky.social

Excited to see our recent work on the electroreductive cleavage of C(sp³)–N bonds in saturated N-carbonyl heterocycles out in @jacs.acspublications.org 🔌Check the full study here: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

pubs.acs.orgElectroreductive Cleavage of C(sp3)–N Bonds in Saturated N-Carbonyl HeterocyclesRing-opening C–N bond cleavage reactions provide an effective means to convert widespread, readily accessible chiral N-heterocycles into hard-to-attain stereodefined linear amines. Current strategies either rely on the strain-induced release of small aziridine and azetidine rings or, for larger ring systems, require highly electrophilic reagents, oxidative conditions, or preinstalled reactive functionalities to enable the ring-opening event. Recently, complementary radical strategies that exploit the reactivity of α-amino-ketyl radicals, formed upon single-electron transfer (SET) reduction of common N-carbonyl protecting groups, have emerged. Nevertheless, these methods facilitate the homolytic fragmentation only of up to 5-membered azacycles. In this study, we leveraged electroreductive conditions to switch the nature of the above C–N bond cleavage manifold from radical to ionic and enable the heterolytic ring-opening of a broad array of unstrained cyclic amines (comprising pyrrolidines, piperidines, azepines, azocanes, and N-macrocycles), protected as N-(thio)amides, carbamates, or ureas. Crucially, this electrochemically enabled reactivity switch grants complementary functional group compatibility and a broader ring size and N-carbonyl group scope. Computational and experimental studies indicate that electrochemical settings are crucial for generating the Mg(II)-Lewis acid catalyst, activating the N-carbonyl moiety while prompting the so-formed oxy-iminium ion intermediates to undergo two consecutive cathodic SET reductions, generating “umpoled” α-amino-α-oxy-carbanion species. These, via irreversible E1cB fragmentation of the adjacent C–N bond, lead to the desired ring-opened products. Our electrochemical procedure can be scaled up and miniaturized (enabling its application to high-throughput experimentation screening), and its synthetic utility has been demonstrated by accessing decorated stereodefined linear amides from stereochemically rich pyrrolidine and azepane derivatives.

Dave Leigh reposted

Cristina Trujillo
@trujillo-group.bsky.social

Great to see this collaborative work out in @natureportfolio.nature.com , led by Michael James @manchester.ac.uk and James Douglas @astra-zeneca.bsky.social Congrats to Ethan Lim and everyone involved! www.nature.com/articles/s44... #Chemistry #Collaboration #AcademicIndustry #compchem

nature.comReductive radical chain initiation through the thermal generation of carbon dioxide radical anion - Nature SynthesisRadical chain initiation strategies are fundamental to the synthesis of small molecule drugs and macromolecular materials. Here a general, thermally driven and scalable method for reductive initiation...

Dave Leigh reposted

Angewandte Chemie
@angewandtechemie.bsky.social

Jean-Claude Chambron highlights the work by @profdaveleigh.bsky.social and co-workers on the synthesis of [2]catenanes from readily available molecular precursors via a metal-free active template approach. Have a look at the article at onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #AngewandteChemieNovit

onlinelibrary.wiley.comAcceleration of [2]Catenane Formation by One of its RingsThis highlight underscores the most straightforward synthesis of [2]catenanes from readily available molecular precursors: The one-pot, two-step catenane formation from a crown ether, a linear diamin...