2019年9月25日下午16:30，应四川大学化学学院邀请，牛津大学Michael Willis教授访问我院，并在化学馆321报告厅做了题为“New reactions and catalysis for sulfur functional groups”的学术报告。此次报告由化学学院余达刚教授主持，刘小华教授、陈小川教授、Jason Chruma教授、董顺喜教授、曹伟地教授和成都生物所廖建研究员等老师及学生参加了此次报告。
在此次报告中，Willis教授首先从含硫的生物活性分子出发，介绍了含硫官能团在化合物功能修饰方面的重要意义。并从逆合成角度分析，引出了他们课题组发展的一系列利用SO2的新方法去合成磺胺类、砜类、磺酸酯类和磺酰氟类等化合物。鉴于SO2的直接使用较为困难，Willis教授课题组报道了一种稳定的、容易使用的二氧化硫代替品--DABSO，目前该试剂已成功商业化。他们利用亲电的DABSO与亲核的有机金属试剂的简单结合，原位生成的磺酸盐中间体来实现砜类、磺胺类和亚砜类等化合物的高效合成。鉴于磺酰二胺分子的重要性，他们还报道了一种稳定的亚磺酰胺试剂-TrNSO，并成功用于磺酰二胺分子的高效合成。此外，Willis教授课题组还开发了一种新型的亲核试剂-吡啶烯丙基砜，与传统的吡啶亚磺酸盐作为亲核试剂相比，该试剂稳定易操作，并且能够兼容多步反应。
Willis教授报告内容丰富精彩，语言幽默风趣，讲解深入浅出。在随后的自由提问环节，在座师生与Willis教授进行了深入地讨论交流，大家获益匪浅。报告在全场师生热烈的掌声中落下了帷幕，结束后部分老师与Willis教授进行了合影留念。
Prof. Willis graduated from Imperial College, University of London in 1992, before moving to the University of Cambridge for his PhD studies, working with Prof. Steve Ley. He then spent two years as a NATO/Royal Society research fellow at Harvard University working with Prof. David Evans. In 1997 he returned to the UK and he was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Bath. From 2005 until 2010 he was an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow. He moved to Oxford in 2007 and was promoted to Full Professor in 2013. His research interests are development of new catalytic processes and their application in synthesis.
Prof. Willis has published 140 papers with H index of 48. He also received many awards, including Thieme Journal Prize (2008), AstraZeneca Award in Synthetic Organic Chemistry (2008), Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry Lecture Award (2011), Royal Society of Chemistry Catalysis in Organic Chemistry Award (2014), and Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Syngenta Process Chemistry Research Award (2015).
