Welcome to the Polyzos Research Group at the University of Melbourne

Our research programme is focussed on the discovery of catalytic reactions and the development of enabling technologies to address two frontier challenges in modern chemistry:

Firstly achieving the direct synthesis of structurally diverse and complex molecules with the enzyme-like efficiency observed in Nature, and secondly developing efficient, sustainable methods for molecular assembly.

We pursue these challenges though the development of catalytic methods to enable the direct functionalisation of C-H bonds via transition metal and photoredox catalysis. We have a profound interest developing asymmetric synthesis methods within this context. Research in our group combines these approaches with flow chemistry methods to enable precise control over reaction parameters and scalability.

Our laboratories located at the University of Melbourne and Australia’s national research agency, CSIRO, to foster deeper collaboration and industry engagement.

Dr Anastasios (Tash) Polyzos was awarded his PhD in 2005 from La Trobe University under the direction of Professor Andrew Hughes and appointed to Research Fellow at the Australian National research agency, CSIRO in the same year. In 2008 he pursued post-doctoral research at University of Cambridge under guidance of Professor Steven V. Ley FRS. In 2011 he returned to Australia and lead the flow chemistry and catalysis group at CSIRO in Australia. He began is independent career in 2015 when he was appointed to Senior Lecture at the University of Melbourne.

His group’s accomplishments have been recognised by a number of achievements including the 2018 Max O’Conner Award and Lectureship, La Trobe University (2018) the Thieme Chemistry Journals Award (2017), Visiting Professorship, ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) (2016) and the Julius Career Award, CSIRO, Australia (2013).

His research interests include the development of new methods and enabling technologies for organic synthesis, photocatalysis, C-H reaction discovery, and the development of sustainable industrial process chemistry. He currently serves as Director of the Australian Research Council Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Chemical Industries.

The discovery and manufacture of complex chemical products to meet societal demands remains an enormous challenge for modern chemistry. The development of advanced materials and biologically active molecules for agricultural and medicinal applications necessitate chemical processes that forge carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bonds efficiently and cost-effectively.

Our research is focused on the discovery of new chemical reactivity and the development of enabling technologies to tackle these challenges.

The Tandem Photoredox Catalysis Mechanism of [Ir(ppy)₂(dtb-bpy)]⁺ Enabling Access to Energy Demanding Organic Substrates

TU Connell, CL Fraser, ML Czyz, ZM Smith, DJ Hayne, EH Doeven, J Agugiaro, DJD Wilson, JL Adcock, AD Scully, DE Gómez, NW Barnett, A Polyzos, PS Francis

J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2019, 141, 44, 17646-17658. doi: https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.9b07370

A Chemoselective and Scalable Transfer Hydrogenation of Aryl Imines by Rapid Continuous Flow Photoredox Catalysis

RL Pilkington, NP Rossouw, DJ van As, A Polyzos

Chimia. 2019, 73, 823. https://chimia.ch/component/content/article/2086

Metallo-Cubosomes: Zinc-Functionalized Cubic Nanoparticles for Therapeutic Nucleotide Delivery

B Tajik-Ahmadabad, L Chollet, J White, F Separovic, A Polyzos

Mol. Pharm. 2019, 16, 978-986. doi: 10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.8b00890

Radical Carbonylation Mediated by Continuous-Flow Visible-Light Photocatalysis: Access to 2, 3-Dihydrobenzofurans

N Micic, A Polyzos

Org. Lett. 2018, 20, 4663-4666. doi: 10.1021/acs.orglett.8b01971

Photocatalytic and Chemoselective Transfer Hydrogenation of Diarylimines in Batch and Continuous Flow

DJ van As, TU Connell, M Brzozowski, AD Scully, A Polyzos

Org. Lett. 2018, 20, 4905-908. doi: 10.1021/acs.orglett.7b03565

Regioselectivity of Aryl Radical Attack onto Isocyanates and Isothiocyanates

GK Weragoda, RL Pilkington, A Polyzos, AJ Richard

Org. Biomol. Chem. 2018,16, 9011-9020. doi: 10.1039/C8OB02209G

Bidirectional Synthesis of Di-tert-butyl (2S,6S,8S)- and (2R,6R,8R)-1,7-Diazaspiro[5.5]undecane-2,8-dicarboxylate and Related Spirodiamines

Joshua Almond-Thynne, Jiaxu Han, Andrew J. P. White, Anastasios Polyzos, Philip J. Parsons, Anthony G. M. Barrett

J. Org. Chem.2018, 83, 126783-6787 doi: 10.1021/acs.joc.8b00794

A Visible-light Photocatalytic Thiolation of Aryl, Heteroaryl and Vinyl Iodides

ML Czyz, GK Weragoda, R Monaghan, TU Connell, M Brzozowski, AD Scully, J Burton, DW Lupton, A Polyzos

Org. Biomol. Chem. 2018,16, 1543-1551. doi: 10.1039/C8OB00238J

Auxiliary‐Directed C(sp³)−H Arylation by Synergistic Photoredox and Palladium Catalysis

Milena L Czyz, David W Lupton, Anastasios Polyzos

Chem. Eur. J. 2017, 23, 14450-14453. doi:10.1002/chem.201704045

Synthesis and Reactions of Benzannulated Spiroaminals:
Tetrahydrospirobiquinolines

Joshua Almond-Thynne, Andrew J. P. White, Anastasios Polyzos, Henry S. Rzepa,
Philip J. Parsons and Anthony G. M. Barrett

ACS Omega 2017, 2, 3241−3249 doi: 10.1021/acsomega.7b00482

Luminescence of a Transition Metal Complex Inside a Metamaterial Nanocavity

Timothy U Connell, Stuart K Earl, Charlene Ng, Ann Roberts, Timothy J Davis, Jonathan M White, Anastasios Polyzos, Daniel E Gómez

Small. 2017, 13, 1700692. doi: 10.1002/smll.201700692

Behnoosh Tajik-Ahmadabad, Anastasios Polyzos, Frances Separovic, Fazel Shabanpoorc

Int. J. Pharm. 201, 532, doi:10.1016/j.ijpharm.2017.08.116

A QCM‐D and SAXS Study of the Interaction of Functionalised Lyotropic Liquid Crystalline Lipid Nanoparticles with siRNA

Behnoosh Tajik‐Ahmadabad, Adam Mechler, Benjamin W Muir, Keith McLean, Tracey M Hinton, Frances Separovic, Anastasios Polyzos

Chem. Bio.Chem. 2017, 18, 921-930. doi: 10.1002/cbic.201600613

Rapid Microwave-Assisted Synthesis of N-Aryl 1, 2, 3, 4-Tetrahydroisoquinolines

José Augusto Forni, Martin Brzozowski, John Tsanaktsidis, G Paul Savage, Anastasios Polyzos

Aust. J. Chem. 2015, 68, 1890-1893. doi:10.1071/CH15490

Scalable Simultaneous Activation and Separation of Metal–organic Frameworks

Marta Rubio-Martinez, Thomas Leong, Pablo Juliano, Trevor D Hadley, Michael P Batten, Anastasios Polyzos, Kok-Seng Lim, Matthew R Hill

RSC Adv., 2016, 6, 5523-5527. doi: 10.1039/C5RA24994E

Triphenylphosphine-grafted, RAFT-synthesised, Porous Monoliths as Catalysts for Michael Addition in Flow Synthesis

Kristine J Barlow, Victor Bernabeu, Xiaojuan Hao, Timothy C Hughes, Oliver E Hutt, Anastasios Polyzos, Kathleen A Turner, Graeme Moad

React. Funct. Polym. 2015, 96, 89-96. doi: 10.1016/j.reactfunctpolym.2015.09.008

Continuous Flow Production of Metal-organic Frameworks

Michael P Batten, Marta Rubio-Martinez, Trevor Hadley, Keri-Constanti Carey, Kok-Seng Lim, Anastasios Polyzos, Matthew R Hill

Curr. Opin. Chem. Eng. 2015, 8, 55-59. doi: 10.1016/j.coche.2015.02.001

Continuous Flow Synthesis of a Carbon-based Molecular Cage Macrocycle via a Three-fold Homocoupling Reaction

Melanie Kitchin, Kristina Konstas, Christopher J Sumby, Milena L Czyz, Peter Valente, Matthew R Hill, Anastasios Polyzos, Christian J Doonan

Chem. Commun., 2015, 51, 14231-14234. doi: 10.1039/C5CC05181A

The Direct α-C (sp 3)–H Functionalisation of N-aryl Tetrahydroisoquinolines via an Iron-catalysed Aerobic Nitro-Mannich Reaction and Continuous Flow Processing

Martin Brzozowski, Jose A Forni, G Paul Savage, Anastasios Polyzos

Chem. Commun., 2015, 51, 334-337. doi: 10.1039/C4CC07913B

Flow Chemistry: Intelligent Processing of Gas–liquid Transformations Using a Tube-in-tube Reactor

Martin Brzozowski, Matthew O’Brien, Steven V Ley, Anastasios Polyzos

Acc. Chem. Res. 2015, 48, 349-362. doi: 10.1021/ar500359m

Book Chapters

OʼBrien, A. Polyzos, A., Science of Synthesis: Flow Chemistry in Organic Synthesis, (2018) 1, 243. DOI: 10.1055/sos-SD-228-00173.

Patents

Rubio-Martinez, M. P. Batten, A. Polyzos, K.-C. Carey, J. I. Mardel, K.-S. Lim, M. R, Hill, Production of Metal Organic Frameworks (2015), AU 2015203627 B1 20151210.

G. Hartley, A. Polyzos, Liquid crystal contrast agents. From PCT Int. Appl. (2009) WO 2010060131 A1.

Post Doctoral Research Fellows

Dr Milena Czyz (University of Melbourne)

After immigrating from Poland, Milena completed her BSc (Chemistry) degree at The University of Adelaide where she later continued to complete her BSc(honours) degree. Following this, Milena moved to Sydney where she undertook a doctoral degree at The University of New South Wales under the supervision of A/Prof. Jonathan Morris investigating the synthesis and properties of atropisomeric N-Heterocyclic carbenes. Milena then joined the group of Prof. Corey Stephenson at The University of Michigan as a Postdoctoral Fellow. She later moved back to Australia where she completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at CSIRO under the supervision of Dr Anastasios Polyzos. Currently, Milena is an ARC ITTC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Melbourne working in the Polyzos group where she is currently developing novel photocatalytic C-H functionalisation pathways.

Dr Geethi Weragoda (CSIRO)

Geethi obtained her B.Sc (Hons) in Chemistry at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.Following that, she joined the University of Cincinnati, USA to pursue her PhD in Photochemistry and Physical Organic Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Anna Gudmundsdottir. During this period, she worked as a research scholar at the University of Hiroshima, Japan under the guidance of Prof. Manabu Abe focusing on transient spectroscopy and matrix isolation studies on reactive intermediates. She is currently a CERC postdoctoral fellow at CSIRO and focusing on Photoredox catalysed C-H activation in natural hydrocarbons under the supervision of Dr. Anastasios Polyzos. She works collaboratively with Prof. Richard O’Hair (Bio21) on developing multi-stage mass spectrometry in catalyst design and radical reaction screening.

Postgraduate Students

Mr Dean van As (University of Melbourne)

Dean grew up in Melbourne, Australia. He obtained an MSc from the chemistry department at The University of Melbourne in 2015 under the supervision of Dr. W. Wong. He is currently completing his PhD studies at the University of Melbourne under the supervision of Dr. A. Polyzos in photoredox catalysis. His areas of interest involve the development of new visible light photocatalytic methods for the synthesis and functionalization of amines in batch and flow.

Ms Tyra Horngren (University of Melbourne)

Tyra was born in Johannesburg South Africa where she completed a double degree in Biochemistry and Chemistry at The University of Pretoria in 2015. During this time Tyra completed an internship under the supervision of A/Prof. Daniela Bezuidenhout. In 2016 she obtained her BSc(Hons) degree after which she moved to Melbourne where she is currently completing her PhD studies at The University of Melbourne under the supervision of Dr Anastasios Polyzos. Her research interests involve developing novel photoredox catalysed C-H functionalisation pathways.

Mr Jose Forni (University of Melbourne)

José obtained his degree in Chemistry in 2014 by the University of Campinas (UNICAMP). During his undergraduate years, José participated in a double degree exchange program with the École Nationale de Chime de Paris (ENSCP- Chimie ParisTech), where he obtained his degree in Chemical Engineering. During this period, José joined the research and development team of SANOFI as an intern and later worked as an intern at CSIRO under the supervision of Dr. Anastasios Polyzos. José obtained his MSc from the University of Campinas under the supervision of Prof. Julio Pastre in 2017 where he worked with heterogenous asymmetric catalysis in continuous flow. During this time, José joined Prof. Steven Ley’s group at the University of Cambridge for a period of 6 months as a visiting Master’s student. Currently, José is completing his PhD studies at the University of Melbourne under the supervision of Dr Anastasios Polyzos., His research interests involve the development of visible-light photoredox reactions in continuous flow.

Mr Xiaocong ‘Nero’ Guan (University of Melbourne)

Nero was born in Tsingtao, China where he completed his Bsc (Chemistry) degree at the Chinese University of Petroleum. He then went on to complete an MSc in Chemistry at the same Institute. During this time, Nero also worked at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Science developing synthetic routes for the synthesis of tumor inhibitor drugs. Nero then moved to Australia where he is currently completing his PhD at The University of Melbourne under the supervision of Dr Anastasios Polyzos. His current research interests involve developing novel reaction pathways using electrosynthetic techniques.

Graduate Students

Mr Nikolai Rossouw

Nikolai was born in Richards Bay, South Africa, before immigrating to Australia. He graduated with a BSc (Chemistry) from The University of Melbourne, working on photoredox thiolation in flow and synthesis of organic photoredox catalysts with Dr. A. Polyzos. He is continuing a MSc with the Polyzos laboratory developing natural product total synthesis in flow.

Mr Mitchell Taylor (University of Melbourne)

Mitchell was born in Melbourne and attained his BSc (Chemistry) at The University of Melbourne in 2017. During this time, Mitch completed an internship with the Polyzos group. He is currently working towards an MSc in the Polyzos group focusing on the development new photoredox methodologies utilizing carbon dioxide as a C1 building block.

Mr Edward Phung (University of Melbourne)

Edward was born in Melbourne and attained his BSc (Chemistry) degree at Monash University. During this time he completed an internship under the supervision of Prof. Marriot. He is currently completing a graduate diploma in chemistry at The University of Melbourne under the supervision of Dr Anastasios Polyzos focusing on the development of photoredox catalysed transformations in continuous flow.

Mr Peeter Graham-Vilo (University of Melbourne)

Peeter was born in Sydney where he obtain a BSc (Chemistry) degree at The University of Wollongong, working on hexaamine cage complexes. He then moved to Melbourne where he is currently completing a BSc(Hons) degree at the University of Melbourne under the supervision of Dr Anastasios Polyzos. His research interests involve developing novel photoredox catalysed trasformations in continuous flow.

Group Affiliates

Mr Rowan Pilkington (CSIRO)

Rowan was born in England before moving to Australia in later life. He studied Science (Chemistry) at the The University of Melbourne, working in his final year under the supervision of Dr. A. Polyzos on photoredox carbonylation in flow. He has completed an MSc in the same group, with research interests in the development of novel photoredox processes and their application in flow processing. Rowan now works as a Graduate Researcher at CSIRO where he is developing novel continuous flow processes using thermal and photochemistry.

Group Alumni

Dr Martin Brzozowski

Dr Timothy Connell

Ms Theerada Seehamongkol

Mr Mohammed Alhajji

Ms Addina Uzahirah Abdul Hakim

Mr Joshua Almond-Thynne

Ms Johanna Vondran

Ms Roisin Monaghan

Ms Caroline Virbel

Prospective Students:

Post-doctoral Scholars: Should you wish to apply for a Post-Doctoral position please send a CV, short research summary and two references to anastasios.polyzos@unimelb.edu.au. It is highly encouraged that prospective post-doctorates secure external funding prior to joining the Polyzos group.
PhD students: Hard working students wishing to undertake a doctoral degree under the supervision of Dr Anastasios Polyzos should send a CV, two references and an up-to-date academic transcript to anastasios.polyzos@unimelb.edu.au as well as apply directly through The University of Melbourne website.
MSc students: Should you wish to pursue an MSc degree at the University of Melbourne, please apply directly through The University of Melbourne website.

Contact Information:

email: anastasios.polyzos@unimelb.edu.au