People in the Department

Dr Steve D R Christie

Senior Lecturer in Organic Chemistry and Departmental Research Co-ordinator
BSc, PhD Strathclyde
Telephone: +44(0)1509-222587
E-mail: S.D.Christie@lboro.ac.uk

Steve Christie completed his BSc at the University of Strathclyde in 1990. He worked with Billy Kerr for his PhD on the Structure and Reactivity of p-allyl metallolactone complexes. He spent a year at Boston College working with Ross Kelly, before returning to the UK to work with Richard Whitby on chiral cyclopentadienyl metal complexes.

Research within the group currently focuses on a number of areas, aligning with the Department and University strategic priorities.  These include:

Healthcare Research: Within the Health and Life Sciences Research School, we are collaborating with the Additive Manufacturing Research Group in Wolfson School looking at methods for the preparation of modified metallic and biodegradable medical stents. Metallic stents are prepared by Selective Laser Sintering, and then the surfaces are chemically modified by employing self-assembled monolayers.  Novel biodegradable materials are being prepared with a view to employing these in the next generation of stents.

Environmental Research:  We are funded by the National Nuclear Laboratory on a project named SAMPL: Surface Attached Modular Polymer bound Ligands for radionuclide sequestration.  This project is preparing polymers with a high density of specific ligands that are capable of binding to radioisotopes.  More recently, we have been funded by Cynar plc to provide some basic insights into their process for converting waste plastics to liquid fuels.  We are preparing a lab scale version of the Cyanr plant to look at the fundamental processes that occur with the pyrolysis system.  These projects fall under the remit of the Sustainability Research School at Loughborough.

Materials Research:  Under the Materials Research School, and in collaboration with the Dept of Materials, we are looking at the preparation of defined self-assembled monolayers on silicon surfaces with a view to providing advances in for example, photovoltaic technology.  We have also started a project looking at the preparation of bespoke flow reactors for synthetic chemistry. 

Synthetic-Analytical Chemistry:  In collaboration with Colin Creaser in the Centre for Analytical Science, we are looking at using advanced analytical techniques to give insight into fundamental mechanistic processes in synthetic chemistry.  By combining analysis, synthesis and computational modelling, we can gain knowledge of reaction intermediates, and ultimately look at predicting the course of reactions.

Recent Publications

“Determination of testosterone and epitestosterone glucuronides in urine by ultra performance liquid chromatography-ion mobility-mass spectrometry”  Kaur-Atwal, Gushinder, Reynolds, James C, Mussell, Christopher, Champarnaud, Elodie, Knapman, Tom W, Ashcroft, Alison E, O'Connor, Gavin, Christie, Steven D. R., Creaser, Colin S. ANALYST  2011, 136, 3911-3916

''An Aromatic Amination Approach towards Ancistrocladinium A/B'' Buckley, B.R., Christie, S., Elsegood, M.R.J., Gillings, C.M., Page, P.C.B. and Pardoe, W.J.M.  Synlett, 6, 2010, pp 939-943.

''Osmium and palladium: Complementary metals in alkene activation and exidation'' Christie, S. and Warrington, A.D.  Synthesis-Stuttgart, 2008, pp 1325-1341.

''Formation of Polysubstituted Tetrahydrofurans on an Iron Tricarbonyl {\ eta^{5-pentadienyl Template'' Christie, S., Cummins, J., Elsegood, M.R.J. and Dawson, G.  Synlett, 2, 2009, pp 257-259.

''Complementary Reactions of Allylic Carbamates Unig Palladium (II): Formation of Oxazolidinones for Allylic Amides from a common precursor.'' Christie, S., Warrington, A.D. and Lunniss, C.J.  Synthesis-Stuttgart, 2009, pp 148-154.

''Preparation of Highly Substituted Tetrahydropyrans via a Metal Assisted Dipolar Cycloaddition Reaction'' Allart, E.A., Christie, S., Pritchard, G.J. and Elsegood, M.R.J.  Chemical Communications, 2009, pp 7339-7341.

Unprecedented cyclization of Nicholas cations onto unactivated terminal alkenes: Tandem trapping of cationic intermediates, C Olier, S. Gastaldi, S.D.R. Christie, M.P. Bertrand, Synlett,  2007, 423-426

Preparation of highly substituted pyrrolidines via an organometallic dipole, S.D.R. Christie, R.J. Davoile, R.C.F. Jones, Org. Bio. Chem  2006 , 4 ,   2683-2684

A new paradigm in N-heterocyclic carbenoid ligands, P.C.B. Page, B.R. Buckley, S.D.R. Christie, M. Edgar, A.M. Poulton, M.R.J. Elsegood, V. McKee, J. Organomet. Chem., 2005, 690, 6210.

Total Synthesis of Japanese Hop Ether using an efficient intramolecular Pauson-Khand reaction, J.J. Caldwell, I.D. Cameron, S.D.R.Christie, A.M. Hay, C. Johnstone, W.J. Kerr, A. Murray, Synlett, 2005, 3293.

Novel formation and use of a Nicholas carbocation in the synthesis of highly substituted tetrahydrofurans, Steven D. R. Christie, Ryan J. Davoile, Mark R. J. Elsegood, Ross Fryatt, Raymond C. F. Jones and Gareth J. Pritchard, Chem., Commun., 2004, 2474

Preparation of New N-Heterocyclic Carbene Metal–Alkyne Complexes and Application to a Stereocontrolled Pauson–Khand Reaction, Andrew M. Poulton, Steven D. R. Christie, Ross Fryatt, Sophie H. Dale, Mark R. J. Elsegood,  David M. Andrews, Synlett, 2004, 2103

A Simple Method For The Preparation Of Heterobimetallic Alkyne Complexes, Anthony J. Fletcher, Ross Fryatt,David T. Rutherford, Steven D. R. Christie, Tetrahedron Lett., 2004, 45, 5247

“Exploration of Nicholas Methodology using Chiral Heterobimetallic Cobalt-Molybdenum Propargylium Complexes”, Steven D. R. Christie,* Ryan J. Davoile and Raymond C. F. Jones, Tetrahedron Lett., 2002, 43, 7167-7170.

“Formation of propargylic stereocentres using desymmetrised alkyne complexes” Anthony J. Fletcher, Ross Fryatt, David T. Rutherford, Mark R. J. Elsegood and Steven D. R. Christie, Synlett, 2001, 1711.

"An Enantiospecific Pauson-Khand Reaction", Anthony J. Fletcher, David T. Rutherford and Steven D. R. Christie, Synlett, 2000, 1040-1043.

"The first successful use of simple 1,2-aminothioethers as hybrid ligands in the palladium-catalysed asymmetric allylic substitution reaction", Gerasimos A. Rassias, Philip. C. Bulman Page, Serge Reignier and Steven D. R. Christie, Synlett, 2000, 379-381.

"Homologation of Allylic Alcohols. An Approach to Cyclic and Acyclic Polyoxygenated Compounds", Ryan J. Davoille, David T. Rutherford and Steven D. R. Christie, Tetrahedron Lett., 2000, 41, 1255-1259

"Heterobimetallic Alkyne Complexes in Organic Synthesis: An Asymmetric Variant of the Pauson-Khand Reaction" D. T. Rutherford and S. D. R. Christie, Tetrahedron Lett., 1998, 39, 9805.

Extended list of publications