Associate Professor of Chemistry Max Majireck and members of his research group recently published an article titled “Room-Temperature Nucleophilic Aromatic Substitution of 2-Halopyridinium Ketene Hemiaminals with Sulfur Nucleophiles.” It appears in a special issue of the chemistry research journal ACS Omega focused on “Undergraduate Research as the Stimulus for Scientific Progress in the USA.”
The research group included Jordan Merklin, Beau Sinardo, Claire Cooper, and Prim Udomphan, all members of the Class of 2026, and 2025 graduate Maddie Boger. They developed a new procedure for synthesizing 2-thiopyridines, an important family of chemical building blocks found in a broad range of bioactive compounds such as those with antiviral, anticancer, or antibiotic activity.
“More traditional methods for making these compounds require harsh conditions (e.g., high temperatures), or expensive precious-metal catalysts that introduce toxic impurities,” Majireck explained.
“Our new method makes use of a new chemical reagent that we discovered, enabling a simpler and cleaner approach that leverages common and inexpensive starting materials. We expect this will be used by medicinal chemists in the development of new drugs, particularly antimicrobials,” he said. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
Posted January 23, 2026
