News
December 2014 - Huck Grover successfully defends his Ph. D and is off to sunny California for his post-doc with Prof. Tom Maimone.
August 2014 - Three for three! Congrats to Michelle Flisar (M. Sc.) Bryan Landshoot (M. Sc.) and Michael Emmett (Ph. D) on their successful defenses.
May 2014 - Welcome to the group Matt Vriesen!
September 2013 - Welcome to the group Joanne!
June 2011 - Mike Emmett presents his first major talk and Huck Grover wins an award for his amazing poster at CSC in Montreal. Good job guys!
November 2010 - Mike Johansen successfully defends his Ph. D. thesis. Congrats Mike and keep on rocking in the free world!
Spring 2010 - Congratulations to Terry and Avedis on their successful Ph. D. defences! Both are off to California to work with Prof. Richmond Sarpong at UCLA and Prof. Armen Zakarian at UCSB, respectively. Best of luck gentlemen!
December 2009 - Avedis completes the total synthesis of Isatisine A; indoles represent! Look for the communication in Angewandte Chemie in the new year.
May 30-June 3rd 2009 - The group attends the 92nd Chemistry Conference and Exhibition in Hamilton ON. Dr. Kerr gave an excellent invited lecture on recent work coming from the lab. The entire group (Avedis, Mike, Terry, Kasia) also gave well-received talks on their research.
April 2009 - Cheryl Carson and Andrew Leduc have successfully defended their Ph.D.'s. Cheryl is off to New Joisey as a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Prof. Erik Sorensen at Princeton, while Andrew continues the chemistry party as a pdf in Prof. Tim Jamison's lab at MIT (Boston MA). Our lab grows steadily smaller. Good luck guys!
December 2008 - Stephen Jackson successfully defends his Ph. D. thesis! Congrats Steve! He is off to soak up some rays in Hawaii as a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Prof. M. Tius (University of Hawaii at Manoa). View the public lecture advertisement here
November 7-9, 2008 - The group attends the QOMSBOC conference hosted by U of T. Cheryl presents a well-received talk on her total synthesis of FR901483, and Andrew wins a poster prize for his work on the total synthesis of allosecurinine.
October 2008 - The website gets a makeover.
September 2008 - Some totsyn news... Andrew and Cheryl complete the total synthesis of allosecurinine and FR901483, respectively!
August 2008 - Dwayne Dias successfully defends his Ph. D. thesis. Congrats Dwayne!
August 2008 - The group attends the Latest Trends in Organic Synthesis symposium at Brock University. Avedis and Nick (from the Pagenkopf group) win poster prizes! Everyone else wins at partying hard.
May 5-7 2008 - Prof. Erik Sorensen (Princeton University) presented an excellent series of three seminars, as the Fred Pattison Lecturer for 2008. The reception for him at Windermere Manor Tues. May 6th was a resounding success (to put it very mildly).
April 2008 - Dr. Ian Young is this year's recipient of the Paul de Mayo Award, honouring the Department's top graduate students. He was temporarily released from his shackles at the Baran Lab at TSRI (La Jolla, CA) for a few days, to present a well-received seminar on the total synthesis of axinellamines A and B. Great work Ian!
April 2008 - Congratulations to Mike Johansen and Avedis Karadeolian, who receive NSERC and OGS scholarships, respectively, for 2008-2009! Also, congrats to Dr. Mike Kerr on receiving a Faculty Scholar Award, for his excellent record in teaching and research! (His substantial prize winnings are credited to our debt, so that we can continue our track record of making supercool molecules)
August 2007 - Jakob Magolan successfully defends his Ph. D. thesis! We wish him best of luck in sunny Australia, in his new position as a post-doctoral fellow in Prof. Mark Coster's lab.
May 2007 - Lab 213 gets new floors! Let's see how long they last this time!
April 2007 - Congratulations to Ian Young and Michael Ganton on their successful Ph.D. defences. Both are off to conduct post-doctoral work with Prof. Phil Baran at Scripps, San Diego, and Prof. P. Andrew Evans at Liverpool, UK, respectively.
March 2007 - Ian Young, Andrew Leduc and Stephen Jackson are awarded NSERC scholarships!
December 2006 - Mike Ganton and Ian Young complete total syntheses of CC-1065 CPI subunit and (+)-Nakadomarin A respectively. Congratulations gentlemen! Look for these in full papers in JOC and JACS soon!
November 2006 - UWO hosts a successful QOMSBOC conference highlighted by great lectures from Dr. Robert Larson of AMGEN, Dr. Tom Hoye from University of Minnesota, and Dr. Phil Baran from SCRIPPS San Diego. We would like to sincerely thank our plenary speakers and the many sponsors who contributed.
August 2006 - Peter Zawada successfully defends his PhD thesis!
August 2006 - Xiaomei successfully defends her master's thesis. She is off to a medchem position with Amgen in Boston. Good luck Xiaomei.
June 2006 - Dr. Kerr, Mike, Steve, and Dwayne win the fourth annual Kerr Group golf tournament.
June 2006 - The Kerr group is proud to receive a much appreciated grant from Merck Frost. Our little chemical facory will remain in business!
May 2006 - Some of the Kerr Group attend the 27'th Annual CSC conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Ian Young receives third place for his talk about his synthesis of Nakadamarin A. Mike Ganton and Cheryl Carson also give excellent talks. The group finds time to visit Peggy's cove and go sailing in Halifax harbour (see photo gallery).
May 2006 - Cheryl Carson successfully completes the total synthesis of phyllantidine in time for the CSC conference.
December 2005 - Dylan finishes the synthesis of the western half of Lolicine A... now he can leave... he's headed for the lab of Dr. Albert Padwa's lab in Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
November 2005 - Some of the group attends QOMSBOC conference in St. Adele. Ian Young gives a well received talk about Nakadomarin A.
October 2005 - Dylan England gets married! ... in Florida, to Jamie Coffee. Congratulations!
September 2005 - Terry and Jake beat Ian Young at golf with a combined (best ball) score of 89!
August 2005 - Justin Williams successfully defends his Master's thesis and is hired by Amgen in Boston.
June 2005 - Third annual Kerr Group golf tournament!!! Congratulations, to the winning team of Dylan, Terry, Mike, and Dr. Kerr.
Spring 2005 - In March, Dr. Kerr and Dylan England traveled to sunny San Diego, California, for the ACS conference. Dr. Kerr then flew to Saskatoon for the CSC conference.
Spring 2005 - Steve Jackson receives OGS scholarship for 2005-2006.
November 6-8, 2004 - Some of the group goes to the QOMSBOC Conference in Hull, Quebec. Mike and Steve give well received talks.
September 20, 2004 - Dr. Scott Banfield successfully defends his Ph.D. thesis. To the surprise of the group, Scott later donates his own precious gift of a case of Keiths to the celebration!
September 2004 - The Kerr Group welcomes its first EVER female graduate students. Congratulations to Cheryl and Xiaomei Zheng for finally breaking through the gender barrier!!!
September 8, 2004 - Andrew Leduc wins an Alfred Bader Award for his 4th year thesis project. (only three awards are given in Canada).
August 2004 - Two natural products (cis-Trikentrin B and Herbindole) are completed by Steve Jackson and Scott Banfield!
August 2004 - Some of the group attends Latest Trends in Organic Synthesis (LTOS) conference in Brock University, St. Catharines. The conference was organized by Dr. Thomas Hudlicky, Scott's future boss. Steve is the minigolf champion.
July 26, 2004 - Second Annual Kerr Group best ball golf tournament was played at Arcona Golf Course in London... congratulations to the winning team of Dylan, Alex, Duke and Mike. (their flawless performance was only blemished by rumours of a team selection scandal in the days preceding the tournament).
June 2004 - The 87'th CSC conference is held in London Ontario. Dr. Kerr's 'Emerging Organic Synthesis' symposium goes off without a hitch. Ian Young wins award for his talk about the 'homo dipolar cycloaddition'. The boss has some refreshments at the Snieckus group reunion.
March 2004 - Dylan, Ian, Ganton, Andrew, and Terry are all awarded NSERC and OGS scholarships for 2004-2005.
March 2004 - Dwayne wins Teaching Assistant Award.
December 2003 - Kerr group attends the chemistry Christmas party... the boss wins 'best dressed' award.
September, 2003 - Congratulations to Matt Frizzle who successfully defended his masters thesis! Matt now heads for Boston where he has accepted a position with Amgen.
August 2003 - Dr. Kerr receives a PRF grant from the American Chemical Society. We get to keep working!
July 7, 2003 - The "homo 3+2 cycloaddition" of nitrones with cyclopropanes is selected by Angewandte Chemie as a "Very Important Paper".
July 4, 2003 - First annual Kerr group best ball golf tournement.
May 23, 2003 - Aaron defends his Ph.D. thesis.
March, 2003 - Jake and Matt win teaching assistant awards.
Oct 30, 2002 - Aaron completes the enantioselective synthesis of hapalindole Q.
October 27, 2002 - Kerr speaks at Dalhousie Undergraduate Symposium on Chirality, Natural Products and Synthesis.
May 31 - June 6, 2002 - Kerr group travels to CSC conference in Vancouver. Aaron wins a prize for his poster.
March 26, 2002 - Eli Stoffman is awarded a Pfizer Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship
March 13, 2002 - Dylan and Scott are awarded NSERC PGS-B awards.
March 12, 2002 - Lab renovations are done!
November 9-11, 2001 - Group goes to QOMSBOC conference in Sherbrooke.
June 07, 2001 - Aaron Kinsman completes the total synthesis of hapalindole Q.
June 4, 2001 - Scott Banfield wins a prize for his poster at the 2001 CSC conference.
December 01, 2000 - Premiers Research Excellence Award to Michael Kerr.
March 19-20, 2001 - Professor K.C. Nicolaou Visits Western as the 2001 3M Lecturer.