Our research activities are centred in molecular synthesis and catalysis and cover fundamental studies into reactivity and structure across to applied preparation of compounds. By developing new transformations and more general reactions we aim to offer more efficient and elegant synthetic routes, thus reducing the time, effort, cost and waste associated with the preparation of complex molecules. With catalytic methods being ideally suited to the task of imparting novel reactivity and high selectivity under mild conditions their use is integral to our work. Our interests span organic, organometallic, coordination, functional materials and medicinal chemistry.
A particular focus of our group concerns the use of precious metal catalysts, particularly those based on gold. We have a number of projects in this area ranging from exploring the unique properties of gold in chemical reactivity, to designing gold catalysts with enhanced properties to achieve more sustainable use of precious metal in molecular synthesis.
Research areas include:
- Reaction discovery and development.
- Catalyst design.
- Mechanistic studies.
- Structure-led investigation of polyfunctional organic materials.
- Target-driven and diversity-oriented synthesis of biologically-relevant compounds.
Further information can be found at the Davies research group web pages.