Russell Cox Chem

🎉We are delighted to announce that the 2026 Natural Product Reports Emerging Investigator Lectureship has been awarded to Jakob Franke (@unihannover.bsky.social)

Please join us in congratulating him! #chemsky #natprod #secmet

Read more about Jakob and his research🔽
blogs.rsc.org/np/2026/03/1...

Phyton Biotech Completes Corallopyronin A Technology Transfer Phyton Biotech has successfully transferred the manufacturing process for the microbial production of Corallopyronin A (CorA). CorA is a novel anti-infective agent with the potential to address neglec...

Our industrial partner #Phyton Biotec has completed the technology transfer for #Corallopyonin A production based on our process that was developed at #HZI and can produce the compound GMP for late preclinical & clinical trials.
See their new press release!
phytonbiotech.com/phyton-biote...

Hi Nina - I enjoyed reading the synthesis article! I'd like to email you - but can't find your address... could you contact me at russell.cox@oci.uni-hannover.de?

The future of total synthesis From structure confirmation to methodology improvements, making complex natural products has driven innovation in organic synthesis for decades. Nina Notman looks at its current state, with threats from funding to academic pressures

Chemists have been trying to synthesise natural products in the lab for around two centuries. Nina Notman looks at what the future holds – and what the field is up against in terms of a variety of obstacles.

Steve Bell’s cartoon: A year in Trumpland

He’s back! The great Steve Bell on a year in Trumpland app.prospectmagazine.co.uk/story/71862/...

Thanks to Jakob Franke for this great collaboration!

Chemoenzymatic Synthesis with Plant Oxidases and Metabolic Engineering Enable the Total Biosynthesis of Rare Gibberellins Gibberellins are structurally complex diterpenoid plant hormones with widespread agricultural applications. However, of the 136 known congeners found in nature, very few are easily accessible, prevent...

One/Two step Total Syntheses of Known and Rare Gibberellins

Chemoenzymatic Synthesis with Plant Oxidases and Metabolic Engineering Enable the Total Biosynthesis of Rare Gibberellins | ChemRxiv - doi.org/10.26434/che...

observer.co.uk/news/interna...

Teresa Carlomagno showing us what "integrative" really means in "Integrative Structural Biology" - "An Integrative Structural Biology Approach to Understand Functional Mechanisms I nBiological Complexes" - #CBCCPS25 #ChemBioChem #ChemPhysChem #ChemistryEurope

I'm thrilled to be shortlisted for the British Journalism Awards 2025 "Energy and Environment Journalism" category

I'm up against stiff competition from the Times, BBC News, i newspaper and the Indy, among others…

Congrats to all on the shortlist!

pressgazette.co.uk/press-gazett...

A Ring Ouzel in a hedge holding a red berry in its beak

I'm thrilled, I saw my first ever Ring Ouzel late this afternoon! 😀😍
It's amazing that this beauty turned up at RSPB Ham Wall in Somerset, as they usually only stop off on migration on high ground, such as The Mendip Hills.🐦
It put on a great show as it feasted on berries! 😍
#birds 🪶

Three new species and one new record of Scleroderma (Sclerodermataceae, Boletales) from northern Thailand The genus Scleroderma (Sclerodermataceae) contains gasteroid ectomycorrhizal fungi and is distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical regions. Fresh specimens were collected in Thailand and report...

mycokeys.pensoft.net/article/1604...
Finally Yok's last paper from her successful PhD thesis where she worked at #Mae Fah Luang University and with us at #HZI (among others) on Thai Earthballs is also out. It was just published by #Mycokeys. Congrats to all co-authors & thanks for funding from RRI!

Is it correct to say an imine is "enolizable" if it has alpha protons? I guess an aza-enolate is a thing, so it seems fine to me to say that.

Enaminable?

Aaand it's out! Meet MITE - the natural product tailoring enzyme database, just published in @narjournal.bsky.social! MITE DB captures the substrate- and reaction-specificity of tailoring enzymes, allowing to capture this information in a human- and machine-readable way! doi.org/10.1093/nar/...

Promotional banner for RSC Advances showing blue microscopic cells with text overlay highlighting 'Year in review: A-E - This is high impact research from 2024. Read now.'

Great science matters. These articles in core subjects from analytical to energy chemistry shaped their discipline last year – read our curated collections and gather insights to fuel your own work.
URL ➡️ https://rsc.li/47nqzZt
#ChemSky

A new bench at JIC in memory of Helen Kieser. She moved to Norwich with David Hopwood in the 1960s and was instrumental in establishing the Streptomyces group and Molecular Microbiology @johninnescentre.bsky.social. Hard to overstate her importance to the #streptomyces field and community.

Stereochemical Dissection of the Strobilurin PKS Reveals the Complex Biosynthetic Logic of Iterative EZE Triene Construction Type I Iterative polyketide synthases (PKS) use a limited set of catalytic extension and -processing domains to create complex polyketides. A remarkable case is that of the strobilurin PKS where a sin...

How do iterative PKS make EZE trienes using a single DH domain? See the results of our experiments on ChemRxiv at:

Stereochemical Dissection of the Strobilurin PKS Reveals the Complex Biosynthetic Logic of Iterative EZE Triene Construction | ChemRxiv - doi.org/10.26434/che...

Into natural product biosynthesis & tailoring enzymes? Frustrated by the lack of a dedicated resource to explore their functions? Tired of endless literature searches for reaction info? Meet the MITE database, freely available at mite.bioinformatics.nl. Preprint: doi.org/10.26434/che... (1/8)

Coprophilous fungi in the search for new antimicrobials and other beneficial natural products Covering: up to 2025Microbial interactions involve complex processes shaped by their ecological contexts. Herbivore animal dung denotes an interesting ecological niche for the study of interorganism c...

pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...
Our new review on the secondary metabolites of coprophilous fungi has just been published by Natural Product Reports. Thanks for funding from the @humboldt-foundation.de foundation.de, the @dfg.de & the @daadworldwide.bsky.social Congrats to all coauthors!

‘Aggressively provocative’: first screening of Saltburn director’s Wuthering Heights gets mixed reaction An early test showing of the forthcoming Brontë adaptation starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi reveals film features horse rein sex, suggestive egg yolks and necrophile nuns

I like “mordant and explicit envelope-pushing”….

www.theguardian.com/film/2025/au...

Poor representations of TFA sources

Is it really appropriate for Nature to display such crude representations of organic molecules in articles?

#chemsky
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Synthesis of L-β-(6-azulenyl)alanine and the fluorescent actin disruptor (6-azuleno)chalasin H l-β-(6-Azulenyl)alanine was synthesised for the first time. Supplementation of this compound to Pyricularia grisea ΔpyiA led to the biosynthesis of the unnatural (6-azuleno)chalasin H and its 1′-bromo...

A new fluorescent amino acid, built into an unprecedented cytochalasan that possesses potent bioactivity…. See our latest work at pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

We are delighted to celebrate our RSC Advances Editorial Board member Professor Young-Shin Jun, who was recognised as one of the 2025 distinguished women in chemistry and chemical engineering at the IUPAC meeting 🏆

Enzymatic epimerization of monoterpene indole alkaloids in kratom Nature Chemical Biology - Monoterpene indole alkaloids are formed via a 3S stereoselective condensation between secologanin and tryptamine. Here the authors uncover the mechanism of epimerization...

Next one out from @oconnorlab.bsky.social department in @natchembio.nature.com. Work led by my office mate Allwin McDonald on the epimerisation of monoterpenoid indole alkaloids in Kratom!
#PlantSci
#NatProd

rdcu.be/ewvtP

Is there a significant difference between ‚for profit‘ journals where reviewers get very little benefit, and society journals where the scientific community is supported from the profits of publication and the review effort?

Four fungi related to species that hijack brains of insects discovered in Thailand The cordyceps species in "The Last of Us," Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, is real and does exactly what the show purports —just not in humans, according to medical experts.

#Fungi related to species that hijack #brains of #insects ...

| #Ophiocordyceps | #infection | #Thailand | Via @sciencex.bsky.social

Withanolide #biosynthesis from nightshade plants decoded. Withanolide steroids are used as a basis for medications for centuries.

Now published by a team around @frankelab.bsky.social + @puckerlab.bsky.social in @natcomms.nature.com (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-61686-1).

Quality of scientific papers questioned as academics ‘overwhelmed’ by the millions published Widespread mockery of AI-generated rat with giant penis in one paper brings problem to public attention

You don‘t have to review or read all of them… but where-ever possible you should select a society publisher!

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

#PlantScience #SecMet