Research in the Sutherland group is focused on a number of key areas. Our main programme of research centres on molecular imaging of disease. We have a number of projects that develop novel PET and SPECT tracers for the radionuclide imaging of a range of neurological diseases as well as cancer. We are also investigating amino acid based fluorescent probes for cell imaging. Supporting these projects is a synthetic chemistry programme, which seeks to develop new transition metal catalysed transformations and one-pot multi-reaction processes for the rapid preparation of polycyclic drug-like scaffolds and natural products.

Racys, D. T., Sharif, S. A.I., Pimlott, S. L., and Sutherland, A. (2016) Silver(I)-catalyzed iodination of Arenes: Tuning the Lewis acidity of N-iodosuccinimide activation. Journal of Organic Chemistry, 81(3), pp. 772-780. (doi:10.1021/acs.joc.5b02761) (PMID:26795534) Racys, D. T., Warrilow, C. E., Pimlott, S. L., and Sutherland, A. (2015) Highly regioselective iodination of arenes via iron(III)-catalyzed activation of N-iodosuccinimide. Organic Letters, 17(19), pp. 4782-4785. (doi:10.1021/acs.orglett.5b02345) (PMID:26394175) Calder, E. D.D., and Sutherland, A. (2015) Enantioselective synthesis of 3-methyleneindan-1-ols via a one-pot allylboration–Heck reaction of 2-bromobenzaldehydes. Organic Letters, 17(10), pp. 2514-2517. (doi:10.1021/acs.orglett.5b01047) (PMID:25933177) Calder, E. D.D., McGonagle, F. I., Harkiss, A. H., McGonagle, G. A., and Sutherland, A. (2014) Preparation of amino-substituted indenes and 1,4-dihydronaphthalenes using a one-pot multireaction approach: total synthesis of oxybenzo[c]phenanthridine alkaloids. Journal of Organic Chemistry, 79(16), pp. 7633-7648. (doi:10.1021/jo5014492)