Prof Nicholas Westwood
Professor
Biography
Nick Westwood completed his undergraduate and PhD studies in Chemistry at Pembroke College, Oxford. He then spent 6 years in the USA, first as a NATO post-doctoral research fellow working for Prof. P.D. Magnus FRS in Austin, Texas and then as a post-doc and Instructor at what was the Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology at Harvard working for Prof. Tim Mitchison FRS and Prof. Matthew Shair. He returned to the UK in 2001 as a Royal Society Research Fellow at St Andrews and is currently Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.
Teaching
In addition to running tutorials in organic chemistry (CH1601 and CH2601) and laboratory demonstrating and running retrosynthesis workshops (CH2601), Nick lectures and runs revision tutorials on three honours modules at present: Quantitative Aspects of Medicinal Chemistry (CH3716), Synthetic Methodology (CH3612 – module convenor) and Chemical Biology (CH5614 – module convenor). He also contributes to teaching through running tutorials in St Andrews’ Integrating Chemistry course (CH4461/5461), acting as an academic monitor on the external placement module (CH4441), supporting students doing our recently developed Year 4 course on Chemistry Research Skills (CH4442) in particular helping them to prepare a literature review and hosting Year 5 project students. He runs all aspects of recruitment to the post-graduate taught (PGT) courses and often contributes to these programmes and related modules run in the English Language Teaching (ELT) School to support our overseas students.
Research areas
The main expertise in our group is in organic synthetic chemistry with a continuing interest in natural product synthesis. Recently we have expanded our expertise to include the use of renewable resources including the biopolymer lignin. We also maintain a strong interest in research at the chemistry/biology interface.
PhD supervision
- Gerard Su
- Filomena Tedesco
- Stephen Bishop
Selected publications
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Open access
Is oxidation-reduction a real robust strategy for lignin conversion? A comparative study on lignin and model compounds
Guo, H., Miles-Barrett, D., Zhang, B., Wang, A.-Q., Zhang, T., Westwood, N. J. & Li, C., 21 Feb 2019, In: Green Chemistry. 21, 4, p. 803-811Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Selective primary alcohol oxidation of lignin streams from butanol-pretreated agricultural waste biomass
Panovic, I., Lancefield, C. S., Phillips, D., Gronnow, M. J. & Westwood, N. J., 24 Jan 2019, In: CHEMSUSCHEM. 12, 2, p. 542-548 7 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Preparation and reactivity of biomass-derived dihydro-dioxins
Montgomery, J., Kempf, K., Miles-Barrett, D. M., Kempf, O., Lebl, T. & Westwood, N. J., 10 Jan 2019, In: CHEMSUSCHEM. 12, 1, p. 190-193 4 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Polycyclic ethers and an unexpected dearomatisation reaction during studies towards the bioactive alkaloid, perophoramidine
Johnston, C. A., Wilkie, R. P., Krauss, H., Neal, A. R., Slawin, A. M. Z., Lebl, T. & Westwood, N. J., 28 Jun 2018, In: Tetrahedron. 74, 26, p. 3339-3347Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
A DHODH inhibitor increases p53 synthesis and enhances tumor cell killing by p53 degradation blockage
Ladds, M. J. G. W., van Leeuwen, I. M. M., Drummond, C. J., Chu, S., Healy, A. R., Popova, G., Pastor-Fernández, A., Mollick, T., Darekar, S., Sedimbi, S. K., Nekulova, M., Sachweh, M. C. C., Campbell, J., Higgins, M., Tuck, C., Popa, M., Safont, M. M., Gelebart, P., Fandalyuk, Z. & Thompson, A. M. & 26 others, , 16 Mar 2018, In: Nature Communications. 9, 1107.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Unravelling the Enigma of ligninOX: can the oxidation of lignin be controlled?
Guo, H., Miles-Barrett, D., Neal, A., Zhang, T., Li, C. & Westwood, N. J., 21 Jan 2018, In: Chemical Science. 9, 3, p. 702-711Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Synthesis of the natural product descurainolide and cyclic peptides from lignin-derived aromatics
Ojo, O. S., Nardone, B., Musolino, S. F., Neal, A., Wilson, L., Lebl, T., Slawin, A. M. Z., Cordes, D. B., Taylor, J. E., Naismith, J. H., Smith, A. D. & Westwood, N. J., 14 Jan 2018, In: Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry. 16, 2, p. 266-273Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Pre-treatment of lignocellulosic feedstocks using biorenewable alcohols: towards complete biomass valorisation
Lancefield, C. S., Panovic, I., Deuss, P. J., Barta, K. & Westwood, N. J., 7 Jan 2017, In: Green Chemistry. 19, 1, p. 202-214 13 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
A core switching strategy to pyrrolo[2,3-b]quinolines and diazocino[1,2-a]indolinones
Jones, A. M., Patterson, S., Lorion, M. M., Slawin, A. M. Z. & Westwood, N. J., 14 Oct 2016, In: Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry. 14, 38, p. 8998-9011 14 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Total synthesis of dehaloperophoramidine using a highly diastereoselective Hosomi-Sakurai reaction
Wilkie, R. P., Neal, A., Johnston, C. A., Voûte, N., Lancefield, C. S., Stell, M., Medda, F., Makiyi, E. F., Turner, E., Ojo, O. S., Slawin, A. M. Z., Lebl, T., Mullen, P., Harrison, D. J., Ireland, C. M. & Westwood, N. J., 14 Sept 2016, In: Chemical Communications. 52, 71, p. 10747-10750Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review