Dr. Richard Procter is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Melville laboratory for polymer synthesis in the University of Cambridge. Richard studied his MChem degree at the University of Warwick, including a three month summer placement working with Dr. Alison Funston at Monash University, and a masters project with Prof. Peter Sadler studying organometallic compounds and their encapsulation in polymer micelles for use as anti-cancer drugs. He completed his PhD at the University of Manchester in 2019 under the supervision of Prof. Michael Ingleson (now at Edinburgh) with a focus on organic and organometallic synthesis and catalysis, using zinc salts and zincates to catalyse the Suzuki-Miyaura reaction, and using low co-ordinate NHC-Zinc compounds for alkyne dehydroboration.

Richard joined the Scherman group in June 2019 working on the NOtCH project. His current focus is on the developemnt of catalysis of reactions using cucurbiturils (CB[n]s) - macrocyclic compounds consisting of a hydrophobic core surrounded by electron dense carbonyl portals, with high binding affinities for appropriately sized guest molecules. Binding of molecules inside the macrocyclic core can induce changes in the guests' conformation and grant increased reactivity, potentially allowing access to novel useful synthetic motifs. Alternatively, using larger CB homologues multiple guests may be assembled in close proximity, offering the opportunity for enahanced catalysis in a pre-arranged active site. In addition, in collaboration with Prof. Jeremy Baumberg in the department of physics, he is seeking to study these reactions confined in nm gaps between a gold nanoparticle and gold surface, with a view to monitor the reactions using plasmon enhanced spectroscopies.