Meet the Team: Andrew Yue (UIUC BS 2024, now grad student @JacobsenGroup) joined the MCWhite group as a freshman under mentorship of Brenna Budaitis. He merged C(sp3)H/N(sp2) cross-couplings with the Mori-Ban for a diversifiable synthesis of zafirlukast (Accolade), check it out:   (@J_A_C_S https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.5c08883) . 

Meet the Team: Brenna Budaitis a MCWhite group & @ChemistryUIUC alum (PhD ’24) now a scientist @abbvie. Checkout Brenna at graduation and part of her thesis research recently published @J_A_C_S : https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.5c08883

What are MCW, Brenna Budaitis (@abbvie) and Zach Firestein working on? Something dropping soon!

Great hosting our awesome Snyder Scholar Haley Pottle @holy_cross this summer! Great chemistry & group runs!

Throwback Thursday: Proud of MCWhite group alum Jennifer Howell (postdoc, 2015) for promotion to Associate VP @Lillypharma! Her HBF4 strategy makes C—H oxidations & amination in [N] compounds possible: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.5b10299

​Thanks to rising star Yang Yang for hosting an awesome visit to UC Santa Barbara @ucsbchemistry for Novartis Lectureship. Incredible students & faculty and an inspiring lecture from Dr. Christopher Sarko @Novartis!

Great visit to Vertex and Pfizer in San Diego. Thanks to Andrew Dinh @VertexPharma and Paul Richardson @pfizer for hosting . Tremendous respect and appreciation for the amazing work of chemists that discover and make medicines to make our lives better!

Dr. Raundi Quevedo (PhD 2022) gave a fantastic talk on molecular glues as the Novartis speaker @NovartisCancer. MCWhite group was excited to welcome her back!

Axe Bar group outing in celebration of Shauna’s visit! Epic subgroup faceoff: Pd/nitrene/oxo. Can you guess who won?  

Happy Holidays from the MCWhite group!

A message from MCW on diversity 

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Meet the Team: Congrats Zach Firestein winner of the @ChemistryUIUC Fuson award! Checkout Zach’s  work on making 3o arylamines using a Ma-SOX Pd catalyzed C(sp3)H/N(sp2) cross-coupling (@J_A_C_S   https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.5c08883)  at the Heterocycles GRC 2026!

Meet “Amination Nation” team @OCB_UIUC @ChemistryUIUC: Grad student captain Brenna Budaitis & co-captain  Zachary Firestein w/ undergrad Andrew Yue. They discovered a reaction to synthesize challenging 3o arylamines (>80 examples)  using one catalyst (Ma-SOXPd) under uniform & ambient conditions. Check it out  @J_A_C_S : https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.5c08883

Throwback Thursday: It’s all about Ma-SOX! Check out  Rulin Ma's (MCWhite Group PhD 2019, @Relay_Tx) publication introducing THE catalyst for allylic C—H to C—N cross-couplings. More coming soon…​

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.7b13492

Alex Gomez’s graduation was marked by many fun & athletic group events. Thanks for encouraging us to find joy together staying active! Looking forward to seeing your group runs at Swarthmore!

Throwback Thursday: Mentor & Mentee Reunited! MCWhite Group alums Prof. Shauna Paradine (PhD 2015, ‪@paradinelab.bsky.social, Univ. Rochester) & Prof. Shannon Miller (BS 2016, @_ShannonMMiller, Scripps): https://www.nature.com/articles/nchem.2366

It was an honor to be the 1st student selected seminar speaker at Baylor. Was great to see old friends, meet talented students and see great science!

So proud of MCWhite group PhD Siraj Ali who will be starting as an Assistant Prof. at Wayne State University this fall!

Phenomenal Novartis Lectures @Novartis by @DonnaBlackmond and our own Raundi Quevedo!

Awesome to host Prof. Shauna Paradine @paradinelab.bsky.social, the OG of nitrene & White-Paradine catalyst, at UIUC. Her group is finding powerful ways to forge carbon scaffolds that we hope to aminate!

MCWhite group holiday & paper party celebrating SvenSOX @ Athina in Greektown and Blackhawks game. Excited to have Sven Kaster & Will Lyon back for the celebration!