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RECAP paper reaches 500 citations

A paper on Building Block Design (RECAP analysis) has reached 500 citations. For me, an endorsement of this pivotal publication.

Back in the last millennium, High Throughput Chemistry was wrestling with how to make appropriate compounds for High Throughput Screening. At the time commercially available starting materials were limited to chemical intermediates, used in various industrial processes. Although a pragmatic source, they did not reflect what was required to generate appropriate leads for drug discovery. To address this lack of design we established a method based on known drug molecules – RECAP. The reason for highlighting this paper now is it has just reached a landmark of 500 citations in the literature. RECAP has been used in a variety of ways, building blocks, fragment libraries, toxicology studies, to see the original text:  

RECAP Retrosynthetic Combinatorial Analysis Procedure:  A Powerful New Technique for Identifying Privileged Molecular Fragments with Useful Applications in Combinatorial Chemistry https://doi.org/10.1021/ci970429i J. Chem. Inf. Comput. Sci. 1998, 38, 3, 511–522

My thanks goes out to my co-workers: Xiao Qing Lewell, Stephen P. Watson, and Michael M. Hann

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31st Symposium on Medicinal chemistry in Eastern England

Unfortunately the 31st Symposium on Medicinal chemistry in Eastern England to beheld at Hatfield on 30 April 2020 has been postponed until November. The Symposium on Medicinal Chemistry in Eastern England, known colloquially as the “Hatfield MedChem” meeting, is a highly successful, long-standing, one-day meeting which runs annually. The scientific program will comprise presentations showcasing medicinal chemistry case studies from tools to candidates, across a range of modalities, therapeutic areas and target classes, as well as covering more general topics from the forefront of drug discovery of relevance to medicinal chemists.

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New role for the CEO

Duncan is pleased to announce that he has joined the EOSnetwork, a charitable organisation focusing on eosinophilic diseases, as a Scientific Research and Drug Development Advisor please take a look at: www.eosnetwork.org

Eosinophilic diseases are not well understood, probably the best characterised is eosinophilic esophagitis which was first described in children but also occurs in adults. It is thought that food allergy may play a significant role. The treatment may consist of removal of known or suspected triggers and medication to suppress the immune response. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eosinophilic_esophagitis

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Elrig-Drug Discovery 2020

20:20 Vision – enabling discovery of new medicines

Now in its 14th year, ELRIG’s flagship conference Drug Discovery 2020 will take place at ExCeL, London on 6-7th October. This year’s event will include cutting edge talks and examples of new directions in drug discovery. Hope to see you there.

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New Synthetic Methods II


The CEO with be attending the SCI’s Fine Chemical Group one-day meeting to showcase cutting edge synthetic organic chemistry. The aim of the meeting is to highlight new synthetic approaches, disconnections and methods, and their application as developed by key researchers from both academia and industry. An exciting line up of leading academic and industrial scientists will present a series of lectures covering areas such as electrochemistry, C-H activation and new catalytic methods.