If I were not a scientist, I would be …
A chef – cooking is essentially applied organic chemistry and a similarly intense career choice!
What is your paper that you are most proud of? Why?
Lee SJ, Makaravage KJ, Brooks AF, Scott PJH, Sanford MS.: Cu-Mediated Radiofluorination of (Hetero) Aromatic C–H Bonds with K18F Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 58(10): 3119-3122, 2019.
Of everything we have published together, this paper is the one I am most proud of for a number of reasons:
i) the article reports the first example of aromatic C-H radiofluorination (the ability to transform an aromatic C-H bond into a C-18F bond), which has proven one of the most difficult transformations to accomplish in radiochemistry. David Donnelly (PET radiochemist at BMS) and I used to talk about how we could do aromatic C-H radiofluorination in Ashley’s Pub in Ann Arbor as post-docs in Mike Kilbourn’s group in 2006, but it took 13 years for PET radiochemistry and organometallic chemistry to become sophisticated enough, and the hard work of a brilliant post-doc (Dr. Lee) and graduate student (Ms. Makaravage) to accomplish it!
ii) I have worked tirelessly to create a lab culture that is inclusive of all people, including female colleagues and trainees. I am therefore extremely happy that 3/5 authors of this paper are rockstar Women in STEM, and am very proud that it was selected for a special issue highlighting Women in Chemistry.