This lecture is free to attend and open to all, but registration is required in advance.
A pre-lecture tea and a post-lecture drinks reception will take place in the City and Guilds Concourse.
Abstract
In organic chemistry you strive for mastery of methods to make molecules. Whether it’s to improve the efficiency of production, test a new drug or catalyst, or to prove a biogenetic hypothesis, the ability to make a molecule yourself from scratch represents the ultimate demonstration that what you have in your vial or test tube is exactly what you think it is and you understand its structure completely.
Sometimes you hit dead ends. Sometimes the progress can be slower than expected. Last year Chris Braddock, Professor of Organic Chemistry at Imperial College London, achieved the total synthesis of an Obtusallene molecule, naturally produced in seaweed. It came 20 years after first selecting for investigation this newly isolated molecule, however for Chris and his students over the years, the benefits of committing themselves to a complete understanding of their chosen molecule were significant and unexpected. In the process of working out how nature had made it for hundreds of millions of years, Chris’s group developed new techniques, predicted the existence of brand new molecules that have now been found being produced by nature, and came up with a unifying theory of how nature makes the entire chemical group of around 200 similar molecules.
In his inaugural lecture Chris will discuss the benefits of total synthesis in organic chemistry. Journeying through a career that has moved from the largely academic to more directly applicable contemporary problems, he will discuss his latest work with the chemicals industry and how better selection of molecular synthesis mysteries means he won’t again find himself working for two decades on a single molecule.
Biography
Chris Braddock read Chemistry at St Peter’s College, Oxford and graduated with first class honours in 1992. He remained in Oxford to work with John Brown, FRS, for his doctorate which he obtained in January 1996. He was immediately appointed as a Fixed-Term Lecturer at Imperial College where he worked in Professor Tony Barrett’s laboratories. In October 1998 he was appointed as a Lecturer in the newly created Synthesis section in the Department of Chemistry and initiated independent research. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2005, to Reader in 2008, and to Professor of Organic Chemistry in 2015.