Dr Stephen Goldup

Room: 1.03, Joseph Priestley building
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7882 8446
Email: s.m.goldup("at" sign)qmul.ac.uk

Research interests:

As scientists skilled in the art of constructing molecules accurately and elegantly, organic chemists are ideally placed to help answer the challenge issued by Richard Feynman when he said that there's "plenty of room at the bottom". By designing and studying molecular machines it is hoped that mankind can take advantage of such devices to carry out tasks that are either difficult or impossible to achieve in other ways. In this we are taking our cue from Nature: natural molecular machines carry out most of the work of life from the very simple such as enzymes which switch on and off in response to external stimuli to molecular motors which move whole bacteria.

In our group we carry out research aimed at producing synthetic molecular machines with a view to applying them to the synthesis of complex molecules and materials which are inaccessible by other means. More generally we carry out fundamental investigations of the properties of reactions and interactions (including electronic, photochemical and magnetic interactions) confined to the restricted dimensions of interlocked architectures. Such devices have implications for molecular photonics, photosynthetic, electronic, magnetic, multiferroic and other smart materials.

Research group

Synthetic chemistry

Publications:

S. M. Goldup, D. A. Leigh, T. Long, P. R. McGonigal, M. D. Symes, J. Wu "Active Metal Template Synthesis of [2]Catenanes" J. Am. Chem. Soc., published online 6th October 2009 (doi: 10.1021/ja9070317).
J. D. Crowley, S. M. Goldup, A.-L. Lee, D. A. Leigh, R. T. McBurney (2009) "Active Metal Template Synthesis of Rotaxanes, Catenanes and Molecular Shuttles" Chem. Soc. Rev., 1530-1541.
L. Pignataro, T. Papalia, A. M. Z. Slawin, S. M. Goldup (2009) "Unusual Mechanistic Course of Some NHC-Mediated Transesterifications" Org. Lett., 11, 1643-1646.
S. M. Goldup, D. A. Leigh, P. J. Lusby, R. T. McBurney, A. M. Z. Slawin (2008) “Gold(I) Catenane and Rotaxane Synthesis” Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 47, 6999-7003. (Cover article)
J. Berná, S. M. Goldup, A.-L. Lee, D. A. Leigh, M. D. Symes, G. Teobaldi, F. Zerbeto (2008) “Cadiot-Chodkiewicz Active Template Synthesis of Rotaxanes and Switchable Molecular Shuttles with Weak Intercomponent Interactions” Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.,47, 4392-4396.
S. M. Goldup, D. A. Leigh, P. J. Lusby, R. T. McBurney (2008) “Active Template Synthesis of Rotaxanes and Molecular Shuttles with Switchable Dynamics via Four-Component Pd(II)-Catalyzed Michael Additions” Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 47, 3381-3383.
M. Alvarez-Pérez, S. M. Goldup, D. A. Leigh, A. M. Z. Slawin (2008) “A Chemically-Driven Molecular Information Ratchet”, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2008, 130, 1836-1838. (Highlighted in Science News, 2008, 173, 120-121)
V. Aucagne, J. Berná, J. D. Crowley, S. M. Goldup, K. D. Hänni, D. A. Leigh, P. J. Lusby, V. E. Ronaldson, A. M. Z. Slawin, A. Viterisi, D. B. Walker (2007) “A Catalytic ‘Active-Metal’ Template Strategy to [2]Rotaxanes, [3]Rotaxanes and Molecular Shuttles and Some Observations on the Mechanism of the Cu(I)-Catalyzed Azide-Alkyne 1,3-Cycloaddition”, J. Am. Chem. Soc.,129, 11950-11963.
S. M. Goldup, K. D. Hänni, A.-L. Lee, D. A. Leigh (2007) "A Catalytic Palladium Active-Metal Template Pathway to [2]Rotaxanes", J. Berna, J. D. Crowley, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 46, 5709-5713. (Highlighted in Synfacts, 2007, 11, 1158)
S. M. Goldup, C. J. Pilkington, A. J. P. White, A. Burton, A. G. M. Barrett (2006) “A Simple, Short, and Flexible Synthesis of Viridiofungin Derivatives”, J. Org. Chem., 71, 6185-6191.