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Research

The Collins Group is broadly interested in the application of catalysis in organic synthesis. All of the methods are developed with the principles of green chemistry in mind and exploit new technological innovations like continuous flow chemistry. Synthetic targets are chosen to impact various fields of chemistry, including pharmaceutical, agrochemical, aromachemical and materials science.
 

New Synthetic Strategies and Tactics for Macrocyclization.
​Macrocycles are prevalent structural motifs in natural products, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Despite their utility, the preparation of macrocycles remains challenging. Our group has developed multiple technologies to improve the synthesis of macrocyclic compounds, including developing novel auxiliairies and additives for controlling conformation, novel methods for controlling dilution effects in macrocyclization reactions through aggregation and novel catalysis to move macrocyclization reactions towards "green" chemistry. All of the methods are developed with the principles of green chemistry in mind and exploit new technological innovations like continuous flow chemistry.

 

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Novel Photochemical Methods for Organic Synthesis
​Photochemistry is regarded as a green technology for the synthesis of organic compounds.  Our group is interested in developing photochemical routes to important classes of compounds and further promoting the use of photochemistry in complex molecule synthesis.  Our group has developed novel Cu-based sensitizers for use in photoredox catalysis, with a goal of using non-toxic, readily available metal sources in combination with approaches which allow for rapid screening of photocatalyst structures for various applications.  In addition, we have developed user-friendly set-ups for performing UV-light mediated chemical transformations.  All of the chemistry developed exploits modern continuous flow technology to accelerate and augment the efficiency of the photochemical processes. 
 

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