Ross Jaggers and Stefan Bon from BonLab report in Materials Horizons the fabrication of hydrogel objects which can be individually programmed to uniquely respond to a shared external trigger, and have the ability to communicate with one another when in proximety.

Ross Jaggers and Stefan Bon from BonLab report in Materials Horizons the fabrication of hydrogel objects which can be individually programmed to uniquely respond to a shared external trigger, and have the ability to communicate with one another when in proximety.

David Fox who spearheaded the project along with Anish Mistry in collaboration with IBM have synthesised and imaged a highly reactive molecule for the first time, Triangulene. It was first hypothesised in the 1950’s and ever since, chemists have struggled to synthesise it until now.

Triangulene, a triangular fragment of graphene which contains two radicals is predicted to have desirable properties for electronic devices. For more information see the article attached.

http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nnano.2016.305.html

The Pattison Group have published the first Rh-catalysed arylation of fluorinated ketones in Chem Comm. Interestingly, we showed the difluorinated (CF₂H) ketone to be more reactive than the trifluoromethyl (CF₃) ketone, despite the fact each additional fluorine atom provides extra electronic activation.

Warwick Chemists Dr. Luke Rochford and Mr. Phil Blowey are featured on the back cover of Chemical Science Link for their work on quantitive measurement of the surface 'trans' effect Link

Dr. Luke Rochford and Prof. Tim Jones, in collaboration with Dr. Christian Nielsen (QMUL), demonstrate crystal structure control in C60 thin films in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters Link

A part of an ongoing Warwick and Monash effort on studying photoactivatable metal-based anticancer prodrugs using vibrational spectroscopic techniques has recently been published in Inorganic Chemistry.

Warwick-Monash joint-PhD student, Robbin Vernooij, presents some of the main findings of their recent work, in a format called LiveSlides by ACS, in order to engage readers in a new way:

LiveSlide Presentation

Research carried out on solvothermal crystallisation of metal-organic frameworks is published as a science highlight at Diamond Light Source.

The work was carried out by Richard Walton in collaboration with colleagues from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and from National Institute for Materials Science in Japan. Using high energy X-rays at Diamond Light Source, the UK synchrotron radiation facility, it has proved possible to penetrate solvothermal reaction vessels and measure high resolution powder diffraction data during the formation of extended solid structures, such as metal organic frameworks. This has provided unprecedented information about the formation mechanism of these topical materials, including direct observation of phase transformation and exchange of solvent within porous structures during chemical reaction.

The work has been published in two papers in the journal Angewandte Chemie in the past few months:

In situ observation of successive crystallizations and metastable intermediates in the formation of metal-organic frameworks. Angew Chem Int Ed. 2016. DOI: 10.1002/anie.201508763.

Exchange of Coordinated Solvent During Crystallisation of a Metal–Organic Framework Observed by In Situ High Energy X-ray Diffraction. Angew Chem Int Ed. (2016) DOI: 10.1002/anie.201600896.

The science highlight article is linked here:

http://www.diamond.ac.uk/Science/Research/Highlights/2016/I12-MOF-formation.html

An antibody that senses one enantiomer of plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) is characterised and published by Marsh and Napier groups in Chemistry and Life Sciences in PLOS ONE.

Collaborative work from the groups of Chaplin, Unwin, Rourke, and Wedge (Warwick physics) exploring the organometallic chemistry of paramagnetic complexes of palladium(I) and platinum(I) has been published in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 

Collaborative research with Warwick Medical School and UHCW NHS Trust reveals new clues to widely prescribed therapeutics' actions in body. Simvastatin sodium salt and fluvastatin interact with human gap junction gamma-3 protein in PLOS ONE Press coverage in Health Spectator.

A Jones Group, Bon Group, Warwick Physics and Imperial College London collaboration published in JPCC shows that local chemical termination variations in copper iodide produces polymorphism in metal-free phthalocyanine thin films.