Fall 2024: Congrats to Daniel Zelch for bringing our asymmetric synthesis of C2-substituted azetidines to fruition with a publication in the Journal of Organic Chemistry! These things are tough to synthesize and Daniel brought the field forward! Daniel worked on it for years, Dr. Chris Russo helped bring the project to completion, and Kirsten Ruud got us started on the journey with some preliminary experiments. A really strong effort by all. It’s linked here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.joc.4c01908
Fall 2024: O’Reilly Lab gets some good press for our strained cyclic peptide grant proposal!
Summer 2024: Congrats to the lab for getting another publication out describing our efforts toward antibacterial compounds. The mechanism of these pesky functionalized dihydropyrimidines remains in question, so we made our compounds more potent and combined that effort with the synthesis of photoaffinity probes to explore that mechanism. A very solid effort in ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters. Cheers! https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsmedchemlett.4c00173
Spring 2024: Graduation time, baby! Congrats to O’Reilly Lab folks Harrison Bernhard, Charlie Roberts, Ana Chávez-Vázquez, and Aidan Tiffany! They’re off to do great things! Harrison is in the Chemical Biology Interface PhD program at University of Delaware, Charlie is in the Chemistry PhD program at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ana is working her way toward being a physician, and Aidan is in the Chemistry PhD program at University of Delaware. So proud of you all!
Spring 2024: Daniel defended his master’s thesis! Very excited for him as he begins his next step toward medical school. We’ll be submitting a paper for him in the very near future! Here’s a shot of him with his committee after his thesis defense. Cheers, Daniel!
Spring 2024: The O’Reilly Lab was well represented at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans, LA. Aidan and Saga presented posters, and Chris and Daniel gave oral presentations. Fun with chemistry was had by all!
Fall 2023: As per usual, the O’Reilly Lab was well represented at the Villanova Undergraduate Research Symposium with poster presentations by Harrison Bernhard, Kelsey Howey, and Aidan Tiffany. Great job everyone!!!
Fall 2023: Daniel presented his work toward stereoselectively synthesizing C2-substituted azetidines in a new format… a “Three-Minute-Thesis.” He did an awesome job comparing molecular architectures to tools that people would use in their everyday life, and relating those tools to chirality. Amazing work, Daniel!
In Fall of 2023, Charlie went to Rice University to present his work at the Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium. He presented in the Chemical Biology section, and was one of two students awarded for the best presentation in the section… so, a tie. First or second, we are super proud of you, Charlie!
Summer 2023: O’Reilly Lab master’s students Daniel and Saga presented their work at the American Chemical Society Young Chemists Committee (ACS-YCC) Temple University Symposium on August 23rd, 2023. They did great, and some action shots are below!
Summer 2023: Vincent defended his Master’s thesis on June 30, and did an AMAZING JOB! Just some thesis edits to go, and he’ll be adding M.S. to his credentials. Vincent decided he loved chemistry and just wanted to keep doing more, so he is starting his PhD studies at the University of Pennsylvania in August. Congratulations, Vincent! Here are some pictures of the group from his defense day…
Spring 2023: Charlie, Daniel, and Dr. O went to Indianapolis to present at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society. Outstanding!
Winter 2022-2023: Vincent, Charlie, Jieyu, and Dr. O were published in Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry. The paper is titled, “Diastereoselective Synthesis of Cyclic Tetrapeptide Pseudoxylallemycin A Illuminates the Impact of Base During Macrolactamization.” Vincent will present a lot of the work at his Master’s Thesis Defense in the near future. Congrats everyone! https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2023/ob/d2ob02126a
Fall 2022: A bunch of O’Reilly research students had their work published in ACS Omega, with co-first authors Zach Boyer and Hannah Kessler. The paper is titled, “Synthesis and Characterization of Functionalized Amino Dihydropyrimidines Toward the Analysis of their Antibacterial Structure-Activity Relationships and Mechanism of Action,” and it involved the work of 6 undergraduates. Very exciting times, indeed. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.2c05071
Summer 2022: Hannah Kessler, Chris Russo, Vincent Fumo, and O’Reilly had a publication accepted to The Journal of Chemical Education titled, “What’s in a Tablet? Extraction and Spectroscopic Identification of Pharmaceutical Unknowns.” It’s a great way to get our students excited about NMR spectroscopic techniques while learning a bit more about pharmaceuticals. Yes! https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c00225
Summer 2022: O’Reilly organized and presided over a session at the Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society, which took place at The College of New Jersey. The session was titled, “The Next-Generation of Scientists in Training: Accounts of Organic Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, and Chemical Biology Research Success Involving Non-Doctoral Students,” which was far too long a title in retrospect. However, outstanding teacher-scholars from throughout the region came together to share their research and their philosophy of advising undergraduate, and it was quite enlightening! O’Reilly also presented in the session.
Summer 2022: Chris Russo presented a poster at the Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society, and it was titled, “Development of a General, Efficient, and Chromatography-Free Synthesis of Phenylalanine-Arginine beta-Naphthylamide Toward Evaluation of its Efflux Pump Inhibition Structure Activity Relationships.” Great work, Chris!
Spring 2022: Hannah Brosman, Zach Boyer, and Vincent Fumo presented their research at the national American Chemical Society meeting in San Diego. It was great having the opportunity to share our work!
Fall 2021: Zach Boyer presented his summer research during an outreach event put on by the Merck West Point team. His short presentation was titled, “Optimization of the Aza-Biginelli Reaction for Effective Anti-Microbial Analog Synthesis and Advances in NMR Characterization of Reaction Products.” Way to go, Zach!
Fall 2021: O’Reilly had a publication accepted to Journal of Chemical Education titled, “Discovery-Based Bromination of Alcohols: An Organic Chemistry Experiment Supporting Spectroscopic Analysis and Mechanistic Reasoning.” O’Reilly looks forward to continuing to use this outstanding experiment to train our excellent students. Let’s go! https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.jchemed.1c00544
Summer 2021: Hannah Kessler presented a poster at the national American Chemical Society conference in Atlanta titled, “Synthesis and biological evaluation of functionalized dihydropyrimidines as allosteric dihydrofolate reductase inhibitors with antibacterial activity.” Congrats, Hannah!
Spring 2021: Zach Boyer received a Villanova Undergraduate Research Fellowship (VURF) and Hannah Brosman and Constance Viollet were accepted into the Summer Undergraduate Research (SUGR) program. All of them will do 10 weeks of summer research in the O’Reilly Lab. Can’t wait to work with you all!
Spring 2021: Villanova’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences recently wrote a short press release regarding the funding of Matt’s NIH grant titled “Development of allosteric dihydrofolate inhibitors: exploration of a novel inhibitory mechanism for a validated antibiotic target.” Read it here!
Spring 2021: Hannah Kessler was awarded a Villanova Summer Graduate Research Fellowship! Congrats, Hannah!!!
Spring 2021: Vincent Fumo joined the O’Reilly Lab for his M.S. We’re excited to work with you, Vince!
Spring 2021: Zach Boyer joined the O’Reilly Lab this Spring!
Winter 2020: Jieyu Zhang was recently accepted to medical school. She will be attending Liberty University in Lynchberg, VA. We’ll miss having you in the lab, but a hearty congratulations to you, Jieyu!
Fall 2020: Hannah Kessler and Jieyu Zhang joined the O’Reilly Lab where they’ll perform their Master’s studies. Welcome!
