Chemistry

Richard J Whitby

Primary position:
Professor of Organic Chemistry

Background

Richard Whitby's Publications and Citation Metrics

Richard Whitby graduated with a BA in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge University in 1982. He moved to the University of Leeds to study for a Ph.D. under the supervision of Professor P. G. Sammes, which he completed in 1985. He then moved to the University of Southampton to take up a teaching fellowship with Professor P. J. Kocienski. He was appointed to a lectureship at Southampton in 1988. In 1995 he was awarded the Society of the Chemical Industry 'Young Chemists' award, the Zeneca Research Award in Organic Chemistry and the Pfizer Research Award in Chemistry. In 1996, Richard Whitby became a Reader and was also awarded the GlaxoWelcome 'Innovative Chemistry' Research Award. He was promoted to Professor of Organic Chemistry in 1999, the year in which he received the Royal Society of Chemistry Bader award.

He has published chapters in two books on zirconium chemistry,1 contributed to special issues of Tetrahedron and Synthesis dedicated to Organotransition metal chemistry applied to organic synthesis2 and presented his work at many international conferences.3

He is currently the external examiner of the undergraduate degree programmes at the Universities of Surrey and East Anglia.

1. Titanium and Zirconium in Organic Synthesis, Ed Marek, I., Wiley-VCH, 2002. Transition Metals in Organic Synthesis: A Practical Approach, Ed. Thomas, S. E., Oxford University press, 1998.

2. Dixon, S.; Fillery, S. M.; Kasatkin, A.; Norton, D.; Thomas, E.; Whitby, R. J. Tetrahedron 2004, 60, 1401-1416. Owen, D. R.; Whitby, R. J. Synthesis 2005, 2061-2074.

3. ‘Multi Component Couplings’ (Genova, Italy, 03). American Chemical Societies ’50 years of zirconium chemistry’ symposium (Anaheim, March 04). ‘Celebration of Organic Chemistry’ (Warwick, Sept 04 ).

Research Keywords

Natural Product Synthesis, Organometallics, Synthetic methodology, Nuclear Receptors, Neuroactive amines, Molecular Electronics, Asymmetric synthesis, Catalysis.

Professor Richard J Whitby's photo

Publications

The University of Southampton's electronic library (e-prints)

Key Publications

Martin, Santiago, Giustiniano, Francesco, Haiss, Wolfgang, Higgins, Simon J., Whitby, Richard J. and Nichols, Richard J. (2009) Influence of conformational flexibility on single-molecule conductance in nano-electrical junctions. Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 113, (43), 18884-18890. (doi:10.1021/jp906763p).
Henderson, Alan R., Stec, Jozef, Owen, David R. and Whitby, Richard J. (2012) The first total synthesis of (+)-mucosin. Chemical Communications, 48, (28), 3409-3411. (doi:10.1039/c2cc17915f). (PMID:22358150).
Whitby, Richard J., Stec, Jozef, Blind, Raymond D., Dixon, Sally, Leesnitzer, Lisa M., Orband-Miller, Lisa A., Williams, Shawn P., Willson, Timothy M., Xu, Robert, Zuercher, William J., Cai, Fang and Ingraham, Holly A. (2011) Small molecule agonists of the orphan nuclear receptors steroidogenic factor-1 (SF-1, NR5A1) and liver receptor homologue-1 (LRH-1, NR5A2). Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 54, (7), 2266-2281. (doi:10.1021/jm1014296).
Thomas, Emma, Dixon, Sally and Whitby, Richard J. (2007) The regiochemistry of zirconacycle elaboration. Tetrahedron, 63, (47), 11686-11701. (doi:10.1016/j.tet.2007.08.105).
Stec, Jozef, Thomas, Emma, Dixon, Sally and Whitby, Richard J. (2011) Tandem insertion of halocarbenoids and lithium acetylides into zirconacycles: A novel rearrangement to zirconium alkenylidenates by β-addition to an alkynyl zirconocene. Chemistry - A European Journal, (17), 4896-4904. (doi:10.1002/chem.201002962).
Harrowven, David C., Mohamed, Mubina, Gonçalves, Théo P., Whitby, Richard J., Bolien, David and Sneddon, Helen F. (2012) An efficient flow-photochemical synthesis of 5H-furanones leads to an understanding of torquoselectivity in cyclobutenone rearrangements. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 51, (18), 4405-4408. (doi:10.1002/anie.201200281).

Article

Harrowven, David C., Mohamed, Mubina, Gonçalves, Théo P., Whitby, Richard J., Bolien, David and Sneddon, Helen F. (2012) An efficient flow-photochemical synthesis of 5H-furanones leads to an understanding of torquoselectivity in cyclobutenone rearrangements. Angewandte Chemie, 124, (18), 4481-4484. (doi:10.1002/ange.201200281). (PMID:22441937).
Stec, Jozef, Henderson, Alan R. and Whitby, Richard J. (2012) Synthesis of homopropargyl alcohols via insertion of allenyl carbenoids into acyclic organozirconium bonds. Tetrahedron Letters, 53, (9), 1112-1115. (doi:10.1016/j.tetlet.2011.12.081).
Zhang, Yuxia, Yang, Zhihong, Whitby, Richard and Wang, Li (2011) Regulation of miR-200c by nuclear receptors PPARα, LRH-1 and SHP. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 416, (1-2), 135-139. (doi:10.1016/j.bbrc.2011.11.011). (PMID:22100809).
Mohamed, Mubina, Gonçalves, Théo P., Whitby, Richard J., Sneddon, Helen F. and Harrowven, David C. (2011) New insights into cyclobutenone rearrangements: a total synthesis of the natural ROS-generating anti-cancer agent cribrostatin 6. Chemistry - A European Journal, 17, (49), 13698-13705. (doi:10.1002/chem.201102263).
Parfenova, Lyudmila V., Berestova, Tatyana V., Tyumkina, Tatyana V., Kovyazin, Pavel V., Khalilov, Leonard M., Whitby, Richard J. and Dzhemilev, Usein M. (2010) Enantioselectivity of chiral zirconocenes as catalysts in alkene hydro-, carbo- and cycloalumination reactions. Tetrahedron: Asymmetry, 21, (3), 299-310. (doi:10.1016/j.tetasy.2010.01.001).
Thiruchelvam, Paul T. R., Lai, Chun-Fui, Hua, Hui, Thomas, Ross S., Hurtado, Antoni, Hudson, William, Bayly, Andrew R., Kyle, Fiona J., Periyasamy, Manikandan, Photiou, Andrew, Spivey, Alan C., Ortlund, Eric A., Whitby, Richard J., Carroll, Jason S., Coombes, R. Charles, Buluwela, Laki and Ali, Simak (2010) The liver receptor homolog-1 regulates estrogen receptor expression in breast cancer cells. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment (doi:10.1007/s10549-010-0994-9). (PMID:20607599).
Marsh, Dan H., Rance, Graham A., Whitby, Richard J., Giustiniano, Francesco and Khlobystov, Andrei N. (2008) Assembly, structure and electrical conductance of carbon nanotube-gold nanoparticle 2D heterostructures. Journal of Materials Chemistry, 18, (19), 2249-2256. (doi:10.1039/b801334a).
Marsh, Dan H., Rance, Graham A., Zaka, Mujtaba H., Whitby, Richard J. and Khlobystov, Andrei N. (2007) Comparison of the stability of multiwalled carbon nanotube dispersions in water. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 9, (40), 5490-5496. (doi:10.1039/b708460a).
Macfarlane, Donald P.S., Norton, David, Whitby, Richard J. and Tupper, David (2006) Zirconium-mediated synthesis of azepanes and benzazepanes. Synlett, (20), 3439-3442. (doi:10.1055/s-2006-956477).
Thomas, Emma, Kasatkin, Alexander N. and Whitby, Richard J. (2006) Cyclopropyl carbenoid insertion into alkenylzirconocenes: a convergent synthesis of alkenylcyclopropanes and alkylidenecyclopropanes. Tetrahedron Letters, 47, (52), 9181-9185. (doi:10.1016/j.tetlet.2006.10.132).
Whitby, Richard J., Dixon, Sally, Maloney, Patrick R., Delerive, Philippe, Goodwin, Bryan J., Parks, Derek J. and Willson, Timothy M. (2006) Identification of small molecule agonists of the orphan nuclear receptors liver receptor homolog-1 and steroidogenic factor-1. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 49, (23), 6652-6655. (doi:10.1021/jm060990k).
Thomas, Emma, Dixon, Sally and Whitby, Richard J. (2006) A rearrangement to a zirconium-alkenylidene in the insertion of dihalocarbenoids and acetylides into zirconacycles. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 45, (42), 7070-7072. (doi:10.1002/anie.200602822).
Dixon, Sally and Whitby, Richard J. (2006) Efficient synthesis of thioamide terminated molecular wires. Tetrahedron Letters, 47, (46), 8147-8150. (doi:10.1016/j.tetlet.2006.09.032).
Hunter, Rupert A., Macfarlane, Donald P.S. and Whitby, Richard J. (2006) Organozirconium-mediated solution- and solid-phase synthesis of 3-benzyl pyrrolidines and other potentially neuroactive amines. Synlett, (19), 3314-3318. (doi:10.1055/s-2006-951553).
Dixon, Sally, Gordon, G. J. and Whitby, R. J. (2005) Zirconium mediated total synthesis of crinitol, 9-hydroxyfarnesoic acid, 9-hydroxyfarnesol, 9-hydroxysargaquinone and the selectively-protected aglycone of moritoside and euplexide A. Chemical Communications, (34), 4303-4305. (doi:10.1039/B508524A ).
Kishore, K., Tetala, R., Whitby, R. J., Light, M. E. and Hursthouse, M. B. (2004) Corrigendum to Palladium-catalysed three component synthesis of α, β-unsaturated amidines and imidates [Tetrahedron Lett. 45 (2004) 6991]. Tetrahedron Letters, 45, (45), 8427-8427. (doi:10.1016/j.tetlet.2004.09.077).
Hunter, R. A., Whitby, R. J., Light, M. E. and Hursthouse, M. B. (2004) Synthesis of phosphinines and phosphinanes using zirconium chemistry. Tetrahedron Letters, 45, (41), 7633-7636. (doi:10.1016/j.tetlet.2004.08.098).
Kishore, K., Tetala, R., Whitby, R. J., Light, M. E. and Hurtshouse, M. B. (2004) Palladium-catalysed three component synthesis of α, β-unsaturated amidines and imidates. Tetrahedron Letters, 45, (38), 6991-6994. (doi:10.1016/j.tetlet.2004.07.150).
Saluste, C. Gustaf, Crumpler, S.imon, Furber, Mark and Whitby, Richard J. (2004) Palladium catalysed synthesis of cyclic amidines and imidates. Tetrahedron Letters, 45, (38), 6995-6996. (doi:10.1016/j.tetlet.2004.07.151).
Norton, David, Whitby, Richard J. and Griffen, Ed (2004) Insertion of (E)-(1,2-dihalovinyl)lithium and (2-haloethynyl)lithium into zirconacycles. Chemical Communications, (10), 1214-1215. (doi: 10.1039/b403337j).
Whitby, R.J. (2004) Carbenoid insertion into organozirconocenes. Abstracts of Papers of the American Chemical Society, 227, U129-U129.
Dixon, S., Fillery, S. M., Kasatkin, A., Norton, D., Thomas, E. and Whitby, R. J. (2004) Ring expansion of 5-to 6-member zirconacycles by carbenoid insertion. Tetrahedron, 60, (6), 1401-1416. (doi:10.1016/j.tet.2003.09.056).
Whitby, Richard J., Saluste, C.Gustaf and Furber, Mark (2004) Synthesis of α-iminoimidates by palladium catalysed double isonitrile insertion. Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, 2, (14), 1974-1976. (doi: 10.1039/b408673m).
Kasatkin, A. and Whitby, R. J. (2003) A convergent regiospecific synthesis of zirconium enolates. Tetrahedron, 59, (49), 9857-9864. (doi:10.1016/j.tet.2003.09.022).
Baldwin, I.R. and Whitby, R.J. (2003) Total synthesis of (+/-)-acetoxyodontoschismenol using zirconium chemistry. Chemical Communications, 2003, (22), 2786-2787. (doi:10.1039/b309848f).
Brookings, Daniel C., Harrison, Stephen A., Whitby, Richard J., Crombie, Barry and Jones, Ray V.H. (2001) Induction of planar chirality in formation of (η(5):η(1)-1-(1-cyclohexyl-2-(diphenylphosphino)ethyl)indenyl)-carbonylrhodium and (η(5):η(1)-1-(2-phenyl-2-(diphenylphosphino)ethyl)indenyl)carbonylrhodium. Organometallics, 20, (22), 4574-4583. (doi:10.1021/om010367s).
Saluste, C. Gustaf, Whitby, Richard J. and Furber, Mark (2001) Palladium-catalysed synthesis of imidates, thioimidates and amidines from aryl halides. Tetrahedron Letters, 42, (35), 6191-6194. (doi:10.1016/S0040-4039(01)01201-1).

Book Section

Dixon, Sally and Whitby, Richard J. (2002) Elaboration of organozirconium species by insertion of carbenoids. In, Marek, IIan (ed.) Titanium and Zirconium in Organic Synthesis. Chichester, GB, Wiley, 86-109. (doi:10.1002/3527600671.ch3).
 

Contact

Professor Richard J Whitby
Chemistry
University of Southampton
Highfield
Southampton
SO17 1BJ

Room Number: 30/3035

Telephone: (023) 8059 2777
Facsimile: (023) 8059 3781
Email: R.J.Whitby@soton.ac.uk