National RSC/SCI Retrosynthesis Competition

Over the last five months, five members from the Smith group took part in the 4th National RSC/SCI Retrosynthesis Competition: Elizabeth Munday (myself, CRITICAT student), Nassilia Attaba, Stéphanie Spoehrle, Calum McLaughlin and Jude Arokianathar. This prestigious competition consists of two rounds and is entered by teams coming from both academia and industry. We were announced as finalists in mid- January after a challenging first round, and began working on the second round molecule/

The final took place at the SCI headquarters in London on the 10th of March. Ten teams presented their synthesis of a second natural product, Eucalrobusone D, in front of a panel of judges and an audience of academic and industrial chemists. It was a very exciting day as the competition was well contested and each team came up with a very innovative and elegant synthesis of the molecule. After a well-deserved wine reception, the results were announced and our team was ecstatic to have come in second place!

Taking part in this competition was a highly rewarding experience, which not only made us learn a lot about chemistry but also gave us the opportunity to meet a lot of chemists from different background and participate in a challenging public speaking exercise.