ACS Catalysis cover feature
Work from the HydRegen project in the Vincent group has been featured on the cover of ACS Catalysis.
The article Hybrid Chemo-, Bio-, and Electrocatalysis for Atom-Efficient Deuteration of Cofactors in Heavy Water (ACS Catal., 2021, 11, 5, 2596-2604) describes the combination of different catalyst systems to carry out challenging isotopic labelling reactions. We have previously shown that biocatalysts are excellent tools for selectively adding deuterium (2H) to molecules (Nat. Commun., 2020), enabling the synthesis of complex deuterated drug molecules. However, the preparation of suitably deuterated cofactors remains to be a key challenge, and in this latest work we report on a suite of "hybrid" approaches that use heavy water (2H2O) as a cheap and safe source of isotopes.
We anticipate that this work will help researchers looking to perform challenging isotopic syntheses for analytical and medicinal chemistry. The colourful patchwork cover design represents the way in which different branches of catalysis can be brought together to deliver enhanced reactivity.
The cover article follows another recent success by first author Jack Rowbotham, who was awarded first prize at the international Next Generation Biocatalysis meeting in February 2021 for a poster featuring aspects of the work.
