Reaction Station Improves Productivity in Sussex University Chemistry Lab

The Carousel 6 Reaction Station from Radleys, UK provides the busy Department of Chemistry at the University of Sussex with a time and space saving alternative to conventional apparatus and methods.

Dr John Spencer, from the Department of Chemistry has invested in the Carousel 6 system for use by the ‘Spencer Group’ (a research group interested in generating organic molecules, mainly for biological testing.

The Spencer Group conducts research on the interface of chemistry and medicinal chemistry, making use of transition metal catalysis and microwave-mediated synthesis where possible, with particular emphasis on

palladium and boron chemistry.

Commenting on their existing methods Dr Spencer said, “Before we invested in the Carousel 6, our processes were slow and protracted due to a lack of available chemistry capacity. Laborious ‘analogue’ bashing was creating frustrating bottlenecks in our drug discovery program.“

He went on to say “We chose the Carousel 6 because it does many things at once: It enables you to quickly and efficiently ‘tweak’ an interesting molecule in order to optimise its properties be it a catalyst or ‘hit/lead’ in the drug discovery process. Having such a small footprint means the Carousel can easily fit in a fumehood and it is well suited for departments with space constraints.

He added: ‘‘Not only is it ideal for parallel synthesis and library generation, but it can also be used for ’parallel teaching’ where three students can share a device and a fumehood, with space for 2 reactions each. The Carousel 6 has helped us greatly in our day-to-day work. In fact, synthetic outputs have probably quadrupled!”