Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

The advent of high-throughput*experimentation, where hundreds-to-thousands of experiments can be run simultaneously, has changed the way many physical and life sciences disciplines*conduct research. One area that has been slow to adopt high-throughput methods,*despite significant potential for advancement, is organic synthesis. While*industry has increasingly used high-throughput approaches for reaction*optimization and parallel synthesis in recent years, academic research has*mostly kept an iterative and often linear approach: optimization by varying one*factor at a time, leading to synthesis in single experiments performed in*flasks. Continued progress requires modernization of our methods and tools.*Leveraging my past experience in pharmaceutical process chemistry, the Leitch group*will develop new kinds of high-throughput experimentation that will ultimately*lead to progress for both academic and industrial researchers.* The most important part of high-throughput*workflows is a rapid, reliable, and user-friendly analytical platform. This*proposal seeks funding for an Ultra High Performance Liquid Chromatography*instrument capable of more than 1,400 analyses/day. Automated sampling enables*24/7 operation, and automated data processing software collates large*data sets. To my knowledge, no system with this level of throughput exists at a Western Canadian university.*This represents a unique training opportunity: students will become*experts on a cutting-edge analytical platform, as well as handle large*data sets using modern data science and statistical techniques. In addition, access to this*instrument will be highly attractive to regional industrial labs, thus fostering academic/industry collaborations.* This instrument is foundational to the new*Leitch group program, which will get underway at UVic in January 2019. This*program seeks to develop predictive models for chemical reactivity based on*data sets obtained via high-throughput*experimentation. This is a new and competitive field, with academic and*industrial labs recently publishing high-profile studies. It is therefore*critical to secure this instrument; without it, the Leitch group research*program would be impossible. This proposal also has co-applicant support from*four senior colleagues at UVic whose research programs will be significantly*accelerated by this technology. I envision this instrument as a core capability*in an emerging center for high-throughput chemistry, available for the benefit*of all UVic researchers.