PDRA in Homogeneous Catalysis for Organic Synthesis

The Role

As a PDRA in the Franchino group, you will be pursuing ground-breaking research merging metal and organocatalysis, to develop new strategies for the stereoselective synthesis of organic molecules. Your project is funded by a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF, 1.7m € in total) recently awarded to the PI, entitled “ChloroCat: Unlocking metal-chloride bonds for data-driven stereoselective catalysis”. In this project, you will design, prepare and test (chiral) organocatalysts capable of engaging with common metal halide (pre)catalysts via non-covalent interactions, using an anion-binding approach. These binary catalytic systems will then be screened combinatorially in several reactions, including with a high-throughput experimentation (HTE) setup, to achieve increased rate, unusual re gio- and stereoselectivity and/or unprecedented levels of enantiocontrol. The mode of action of the binary catalytic systems will be investigated experimentally and explored computationally. Improved second-generation catalysts will be designed following mechanistic insights, with the help of structure-activity relationships and computational predictions.

You will spend 1 month in the laboratory of our collaborator Dr Jolene Reid at the University of British Columbia (Canada), to gain advanced skills in DFT calculations and machine learning techniques applied to catalyst design. All expenses for your stay at UBC will be covered by the FLF.

The project involves the following skills. It is expected that you are, at present, an expert on at least one of them, and looking forward to mastering all the others all during your stay in the group:

• Synthetic organic and organometallic chemistry (synthesis, purification and characterisation of substrates, products, ligands and catalysts using several techniques);
• Enantioselective catalysis (with both transition metals and organocatalysts, and using HTE);
• Supramolecular chemistry (study of non-covalent interactions in solution and in the solid state);
• Mechanistic elucidation using experimental and computational tools (e.g., kinetic studies, DFT calculations for homogeneous catalytic reactions and machine learning workflows).

This post is fixed term for 3 years, as the funding has been awarded to the PI to cover for a 36-month PDRA position, as part of her UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.

You will, ideally, be in post by May 2025, however an earlier or later start date can be very easily accommodated.

When appointing to this role the University must ensure that it meets any applicable immigration requirements, including salary thresholds which are applicable to some visas.

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