Our Postdoc Andrea Delledonne receives a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie International Postdoctoral Fellowship. Congratulations to all of your achievements, Andrea!

Lack of Evidence Supporting Widespread Use of 1,2-Dibromoethane as an Activator for Zinc: Alternative Stirring or TMSCl Activation Decades of protocols use 1,2-dibromoethane as an activating agent for zinc metal powder to promote direct insertion into organohalides, but kinetics experiments examining its effect on reaction rates are absent. Here condition- and concentration-controlled 1H NMR spectroscopy kinetics experiments measure rates, induction periods, and yields─and surprisingly showed that typically reported synthetic conditions and quantities of 1,2-dibromoethane (4 mol %) had no effect on the rate of direct insertion of alkyl iodides. Instead, an acceleration was caused by the physical stirring processes alone that accompanied the published synthetic procedures for the “chemical” activation protocol. This finding was adapted to aryl iodides as an example substrate with longer induction periods, leading to the discovery that relatively short prestir times (1 h) with a magnetic stir bar produced activation of zinc that approached similar degrees (∼85%) in the absence of 1,2-dibromoethane. An origin of the previously observed activation is therefore reassigned, in part, to mechanical activation of the surface during these processes. When 1,2-dibromoethane and trimethylsilyl chloride (TMSCl) were both present, as in many reported synthetic protocols, TMSCl caused full activation, and 1,2-dibromoethane caused no additional effect. The broad replacement of 1,2-dibromoethane activation is thus supported.

Congratulations to Sylvia Lou for identifying and demonstrating that there is lack of evidence supporting 1,2-dibromoethane activates zinc, now in JACS!
pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

Polymer Size–Catalytic Activity Relationships in Solution by Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy coupled with chemoselective fluorescent monomers enables catalytic activity characterization of catalysts associated with polymers in solution and determines cat...

Congratulations to Vy Pham for discovering polymer size–catalytic activity relationships using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, now in Chem. Eu. J.!
chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Tetramethylethylenediamine Stabilizes Organozinc Surface Intermediates against Chemical Etching but Not against Protodemetalation N,N,N’,N’-Tetramethylethylenediamine (TMEDA) is known to increase yields in Negishi-type cross-coupling reactions in aqueous–surfactant mixtures, presumably by increasing the persistence of the organo...

Congratulations to Sylvia Lou on discovering tetramethylethylenediamine stabilizes organozinc surface intermediates against chemical etching, now in Organometallics!
pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Three-Phase Emulsions during Cross-Coupling Reactions in Water Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) enabled identification of three-phase emulsions during a cross-coupling reaction in water, offering insight into their features and factors driving thei...

Congratulations to Yiqing Zhang for exploring the physiochemical properties of three-phase emulsions during coupling reactions in water, now in JOC!
pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Self‐Assembly Methods Induce Different Individual‐Polymer‐Block Solvation Responses Different processing methods of the otherwise same block copolymer produce materials that respond distinctly to solvent stimuli. FLIM, which reveals changes in the tightness or looseness of individua...

Congratulations to Pía López and Dr. Or Eivgi for finding effects of assembly methods on solvation responses of polymers, now in Chem. Eur. J.! Great to work with our collaborators on SAXS data, Nehal Idris and Prof. Joe Patterson.
chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Demoing FlexWave with @picoquant.bsky.social

Congratulations to our 2nd-year graduate student, Alexis Ravenscroft, for receiving an NSF GRFP honorable mention in recognition of her accomplishments, research proposal, and future potential! Her work focuses on catalyst recycling using fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM).

Pía López successfully defended her PhD thesis, congratulations! Here's to the next chapter, Dr. López!

Canceled meetings and confusion: NIH grant funding in limbo despite court injunction Science researchers awaiting National Institutes of Health funding say their grant meetings are being canceled, despite a court order blocking the Trump administration from freezing federal funds.

WBUR story up

www.wbur.org/news/2025/02...

Our lab is happy to be @raierdmann.bsky.social's 6th follower on Bluesky

A famous course in the department and beyond!

Congratulations on this publication!

In these times, it's important to remember our core values. Welcome new PhD group members Roee Dagan and Maxi Ledesma! They are discovering strategies for catalyst recycling and organic synthesis reaction sustainability using fluorescence microscopy.

With photo credits!

A wonderful commentary in Science.

Having had the pleasure of joining PicoQuant at this course in a previous year, can highly recommend this great course.

Congratulations on the paper!

Interesting characterization techniques are helpful indeed--sounds like a great talk.

A great opportunity. Commenting to boost!

@brimcwhorter.bsky.social hosted a top-notch science communication workshop at our lab's group meeting, helping us hone our skills at presenting data and experiments. We had a blast. Thanks, Bri.

Our lab is happy to be one of @picoquant.bsky.social's first 9 followers on BlueSky.

Check out Martin and Erin's latest JOCSynopis on mechanisms of activating agents to generate organozinc reagents. pubs.acs.org/doi/epdf/10....

Wish I were there to check out the new equipment!