Dr Alex Pulis

I was born in Newport South Wales. I obtained his MSci with industrial experience from the University of Bristol in 2008. After gaining a University of Bristol Postgraduate Scholarship I undertook a PhD within the group of Prof. Varinder K. Aggarwal where I investigated the lithiation-borylation reaction for stereoselective synthesis of tertiary boronic esters. In 2014 I joined the group of Prof. Douglas W. Stephan at the University of Toronto as a postdoctoral fellow and worked on the development of air stable Frustrated Lewis Pairs and their application to the hydrogenation of carbon dioxide. I moved to the University of Manchester in 2015 to take a position as fixed term Lecturer in Organic Chemistry within the group of Prof. David J. Procter. In September 2018 I began my first independent position as a Lecturer of Organic Chemistry at the University of Leicester.

My research broadly covers synthetic organic and inorganic chemistry. We explore the reactivity of main group elements and use them to develop unusual catalytic transformations that repurpose common starting materials. This research gives biologists and medicinal chemists access to the molecules they need to discover new medicines. To get a flavour of our current research, please see the publications tab.

Selected Publications

 

Electron deficient borane-mediated hydride abstraction in amines: stoichiometric and catalytic processes

S. Basak, L. Winfrey, B. A. Kustiana, R. L. Melen, L. C. Morrill, A. P. Pulis

Chem. Soc. Rev. 2021, 50, 3720 link

 

B(C₆F₅)₃ Catalyzed Direct C3 Alkylation of Indoles and Oxindoles

S. Basak, A. Alvarez-Montoya, L. Winfrey, R. L. Melen, L. C. Morrill, A. P. Pulis

ACS Catal. 2020, 10, 4835 link

 

Uncovering the Synthetic Potential of Frustrated Lewis Pairs

A. P Pulis, L. Winfrey, A. Alvarez-Montoya

in Reference Module in Chemistry, Molecular Sciences and Chemical Engineering, 2019, p 1. link

 

Regiodivergent copper catalyzed borocyanation of 1,3-dienes

T. Jia, Q. He, R. E. Ruscoe, A. P. Pulis, D. J. Procter

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018, 57, 11305 link

 

The interrupted Pummerer reaction in a sulfoxide‐catalyzed oxidative coupling of 2‐naphthols

Z. He, A. P. Pulis, D. J. Procter

Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2019, 58, 7813 link

 

One-pot borylation/Suzuki-Miyaura sp2-sp3 cross-coupling

L. Whitaker, H. Y. Harb, A. P. Pulis

Chem. Commun. 2017, 53, 9364 link

 

Regioselective synthesis of C3 alkylated and arylated benzothiophenes

H. J. Shrives, J. A. Fernández-Salas, C. Hedtke, A. P. Pulis, David J. Procter

Nature Commun. 2017, 8, 14801 link

 

 

Supervising projects in Synthetic Organic and Inorganic chemistry, including methodology, target and total synthesis and small molecule activation.

CH2200 Spectroscopy Theory and Practice

CH3204 Biological Chemistry

CH4201 Advanced Structure Determination

Dalian-Leicester Institute Flying Faculty