Riley Group

Sustainable way to make breast cancer drug could boost South African production

by rileykksUncategorized October 27, 2022October 27, 2022Comments are Disabled

We recently had the opportunity to team up with Prof Mimi Hii’s team at Imperial College London and Dr Jenny-Lee Panayides group at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa to work on the development of a more sustainable way to manufacture the breast cancer drug lapatinib. Read the article here, and …

RSC Twitter Poster Conference – 2022

by rileykksUncategorized March 11, 2022October 13, 2022Comments are Disabled

Nicole Neyt and Lorinda van Wyk participated in this years RSC Twitter Poster Conference held over 24 hours from the 1st to 2nd of March 2022. Nicole presented her work towards the development of a novel flow ozonolysis flow reactor which allows on-the-fly ozone degassing and Lorinda presented her’s and Nicole’s efforts to develop a …

Review – Application of reactor engineering concepts in continuous flow chemistry: a review

by rileykksUncategorized May 4, 2021October 13, 2022Comments are Disabled

Read Nicole Neyts’ new review article (and second cover in Reaction Chemistry and Engineering) here, detailing the application of reactor engineering concepts in flow chemistry. The adoption of flow technology for the manufacture of chemical entities, and in particular pharmaceuticals, has seen rapid growth over the past two decades with the technology now blurring the …

Arkivoc Regional issue – Organic Chemistry in South Africa

by rileykksUncategorized November 1, 2020October 12, 2022Comments are Disabled

We were recently invited to contribute to an Arkivoc Regional Issue focused on Organic Chemistry in South Africa. Read guest editor Prof Willem A. L. van Otterlo’s preface to the two-part special edition here. We were able to contribute two articles to the issue, the first entitled “Binding pose analysis of hydroxyethylamine based β-secretase inhibitors …

Paper – Improved batch and flow syntheses of the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib

by rileykksUncategorized October 20, 2020October 13, 2022Comments are Disabled

Read about our latest pharmaceutical total synthesis under flow conditions here. Congrats to Chantal Scholtz on her development of an improved flow synthesis of the anti-inflammatory COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib.

New collaboration to support essential medication manufacture in South Africa – Imperial College London News

by rileykksUncategorized May 5, 2020July 10, 2020Comments are Disabled

One of our own Valerie Ramaotsoa was recent featured in Imperial College London News talking about our Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) project which aims to boost South Africa’s self sufficiency in essential medicines manufacture. Valerie was the second member of our team to undertake a short research visit to Prof Mimi Hii’s Rapid Online …

Reaction Chemistry and Engineering’s Emerging Investigators 2019 Special Issue

by rileykksGeneral January 22, 2020July 10, 2020Comments are Disabled

We are proud to have been asked to contribute two publications to the RSC’s Reaction Chemistry and Engineering’s Emerging Investigators 2019 special issue where we have reported on the use of immobilized tetrakis(triphenylphosphine)palladium(0) for Suzuki–Miyaura coupling reactions under flow conditions and have reviewed the landscape and opportunities for active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing in developing African …

Moonshot catalogue – Medicines for Eveyone

by rileykksUncategorized January 7, 2020July 10, 2020Comments are Disabled

Our group was recently featured in a great article by Alla Katsnelson in the Moonshot catalogue looking at the potential for flow chemistry as a manufacturing technology and how it extends to a global goal of providing medicines for evetyone. The moonshot catalogue publishes opinion pieces on bid doable projects (moonshots) for a forward-looking future. …

Paper – Novel N-benzylpiperidine carboxamide derivatives as potential cholinesterase inhibitors for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease

by rileykksUncategorized October 1, 2019October 12, 2022Comments are Disabled

We have recently publicshed a follow-up paper to our 2017 in which we identified a potent anti-cholinergic agent. In this paper we have been able to maintain good activity while reducing the metabolical liability of the active species (European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 2019, 179, 680-693). Congratulations to Divan van Greunen who performed the synthetic …

Paper – A reaction energy profile and fragment attributed molecular system energy change (FAMSEC)-based protocol designed to uncover reaction mechanisms: a case study of the proline-catalysed aldol reaction

by rileykksUncategorized July 5, 2019October 12, 2022Comments are Disabled

Congratulations to George Dhimba for his efforts in uncovering reaction mechanisms using the REP-FAMSEC (reaction energy profile-fragment attributed molecular system energy change) based-protocol. Read his case study here where he uncovers some of the secrets of proline catalysed aldol reactions.