Prof. Martin Wills

BSc, Chemistry, Imperial College, D.Phil (Oxon), CChem, MRSC

Research Summary

There is much more information, including teaching materials, publications and who's who, on my group website, so please go there now.

Synthetic chemistry and asymmetric catalysis; Enantioselective ketone reduction using transfer hydrogenation and asymmetric carbon-carbon bond forming reactions using homochiral transition metal catalysts; Total and partial synthesis of natural products; Development of catalysts for hydrogen generation; Development of supported reagents for synthesis. Our group use a wide range of structural and analytical techniques such as infra-red, NMR, mass spectrometry, X-ray diffraction and atomic absorption spectroscopy.

Selected Recent Publications

'Ether- Tethered Ru(II)/TsDPEN Complexes; Synthesis and Applications to Asymmetric Transfer Hydrogenation' Vimal Parekh, James A Ramsden and Martin Wills, Catal. Sci. Technol., 2012, 2, 406-414.

‘Developing asymmetric iron and ruthenium-based cyclone complexes; complex factors influence the asymmetric induction in the transfer hydrogenation of ketones’ Jonathan P. Hopewell, José E. D. Martins, Tarn C. Johnson, Jamie Godfrey and Martin Wills, Org. Biomol. Chem. 2012, 10, 134-145.

REVIEW: ‘Asymmetric catalysis using iron complexes – ‘Ruthenium Lite?’ M. Darwish and M. Wills, Catal. Sci. Technol. 2012, 2, 243 - 255.

The Importance of the N-H Bond in Ru/TsDPEN Complexes for Asymmetric Transfer Hydrogenation of Ketones and Imines, Rina Soni, Fung Kei Cheung, Guy C. Clarkson, Jose E. D. Martins, Mark A. Graham and Martin Wills, Org. Biomol. Chem. 2011, 9, 3290-3294

An Unexpected Directing Effect in the Asymmetric Transfer Hydrogenation of a,a-Disubstituted Ketones, Rina Soni, John-Michael Collinson, Guy C. Clarkson, and Martin Wills, Organic Letters 2011, 13, 4304–4307.

Cyclopentadienone)iron-Shvo complexes; synthesis and applications to hydrogen transfer reactions Tarn C. Johnson, Guy J. Clarkson and Martin Wills, Organometallics 2011, 30, 1859-1868.

Kinetic and structural studies on 'tethered'Ru(II) arene ketone reduction catalysts
Fung Kei (Kathy) Cheung, Adam J. Clarke, G. Glarkson, David J. Fox, Mark A. Graham Changxue Lin, Andriana Lorente Crivillé and Martin Wills, Dalton Trans. 2010, 39, 1395 - 1402..

Inhibition of Prolyl Oligopeptidase using a Synthetic Unnatural Dipeptide
Daurgirdas T. Racys, Dean Rea, Vilmos Fulop and Martin Wills, Bioorg Med. Chem. 2010, 18, 4775-4782.

Ru(II) Complexes of N-Alkylated TsDPEN Ligands in Asymmetric Transfer Hydrogenation of Ketones and Imines
José E. D. Martins, Guy J. Clarkson and Martin Wills, Org. Lett. 2009, 11, 847-850.