Synthesising reactions

The importance of photochemistry cannot be overstated. It is essential for life on Earth and holds great potential for sustainable energy production and chemical manufacturing, where the interaction of molecules with visible light, in particular sunlight, is used to drive chemical reactions. Despite these visions of light-powered societies being well over a century old, visible light photochemistry remained underutilised until recently, especially in the field of organic synthesis. This is because most organic molecules are colourless, which means they do not interact with visible light – no interaction means no reaction! However, this all changed with the introduction of photocatalysts, coloured molecules that repeatedly trap photons of light and use their energy to promote reactions. In this talk, I will explain what photochemistry is, its importance, and the impacts photocatalysis has had on improving the sustainability of chemical synthesis, including small scale discovery of bioactive molecules, plastic recycling, and large-scale continuous flow manufacturing, guided by Beer!

Peptides—short chains of amino acids—play essential roles in biology and are increasingly important as therapeutic agents. However, their synthesis remains challenging. Conventional peptide synthesis is often slow, inefficient, and difficult to predict, with aggregation posing a major obstacle. As the peptide chain grows, it can become poorly soluble, leading to self-interaction that disrupts further elongation.

In this talk, I will present continuous flow approaches specifically applied to peptide synthesis, offering a faster and more controlled alternative to traditional batch methods. Flow-based peptide synthesis enables rapid coupling cycles, improved reproducibility, and precise control over reaction conditions, making it particularly powerful for high-throughput sequence exploration and optimisation. Importantly, these systems allow peptide formation to be monitored in real time as the chain is assembled.

By integrating inline analytical tools, we can directly observe sequence-dependent aggregation behaviour as it emerges during synthesis—insights that are typically inaccessible in batch processes. Correlating these observations with reaction conditions provides a deeper understanding of how and when aggregation occurs, enabling strategies to mitigate it. This ultimately leads to faster, more reliable, and higher-purity peptide synthesis.