Jochen Brandt
@jochenbrandt.bsky.social
2020 Royal Society University Research Fellow at QMUL. Interested in Chemistry, helicenes, chiral materials, CISS and baked goods. He/Him/His mstdn.science/@JochenRBrandt
Pinned
a dog wearing glasses and a lab coat looks at a beaker under a microscope
ALT: a dog wearing glasses and a lab coat looks at a beaker under a microscope
media.tenor.com
PhD position available! #ChemSky #PiSky This project is highly interdisciplinary, using organic synthesis to work towards room-temperature quantum technologies.
www.findaphd.com/phds/project... The funding is for Home Fee students, and covers 4 years at the UKRI rate (£22,780 tax free for 2025/26).
www.findaphd.com/phds/project... The funding is for Home Fee students, and covers 4 years at the UKRI rate (£22,780 tax free for 2025/26).
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
Under the proposed UK immigration rules, Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany would have had bwen reviewed every 2.5 years until the 1960s and once the war was over and Germany 'safe', they all would have been sent back to live in the country, that had recently murdered millions of their fellow Jews.
November 17, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Under the proposed UK immigration rules, Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany would have had bwen reviewed every 2.5 years until the 1960s and once the war was over and Germany 'safe', they all would have been sent back to live in the country, that had recently murdered millions of their fellow Jews.
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
Whether you're starting out in a theory project on molecular magnetism, or a synthetic chemist curious about how the magic happens, check out my new tutorial review: pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a... @rsc.org @scienceanu.bsky.social @uomresearchit.bsky.social
Ab initio electronic structure calculations of lanthanide single-molecule magnets; a practical guide
Research into single-molecule magnetism lies at the nexus of challenging synthetic chemistry, spin physics and ab initio quantum chemistry. There are no “one-size-fits-all” textbooks and as such it ca...
pubs.rsc.org
November 11, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Whether you're starting out in a theory project on molecular magnetism, or a synthetic chemist curious about how the magic happens, check out my new tutorial review: pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a... @rsc.org @scienceanu.bsky.social @uomresearchit.bsky.social
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
Nov 7th is the birthday of both Lise Meitner & Marie Curie. Of the 13 chemical elements named directly after real people (not mythological figures) only two are named after women: meitnerium and curium (the latter of which is named in honour of both Marie & her husband) #chemsky 🧪
November 7, 2025 at 9:49 PM
Nov 7th is the birthday of both Lise Meitner & Marie Curie. Of the 13 chemical elements named directly after real people (not mythological figures) only two are named after women: meitnerium and curium (the latter of which is named in honour of both Marie & her husband) #chemsky 🧪
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
Our Faraday paper is now published in all its glory! www.nature.com/articles/s41... #Chemsky #Physics @oxfordchemistry.bsky.social @spcoxford.bsky.social
November 3, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Our Faraday paper is now published in all its glory! www.nature.com/articles/s41... #Chemsky #Physics @oxfordchemistry.bsky.social @spcoxford.bsky.social
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
Government has published one of those quiet but important documents that might get overlooked as it is not 'newsy'. The headline finding is that £1 of public R&D investment generates £8 in net economic benefits for the UK over the long term
www.gov.uk/government/p...
www.gov.uk/government/p...
The value of public R&D
www.gov.uk
October 30, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Government has published one of those quiet but important documents that might get overlooked as it is not 'newsy'. The headline finding is that £1 of public R&D investment generates £8 in net economic benefits for the UK over the long term
www.gov.uk/government/p...
www.gov.uk/government/p...
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
It so was hard to imagine having successful career in science as a disabled PhD student that eventually I just left.
Who could have guessed that years later I would help create a magazine issue dedicated to highlighting Trailblazing disabled chemists!
cen.acs.org/people/profi...
#DisabledInSTEM
Who could have guessed that years later I would help create a magazine issue dedicated to highlighting Trailblazing disabled chemists!
cen.acs.org/people/profi...
#DisabledInSTEM
Trailblazers: Chemists with disabilities rethink how we do science
C&EN’s 2025 Trailblazers issue, curated by guest editor Mona Minkara, looks at how chemists can solve problems in new ways
cen.acs.org
September 15, 2025 at 6:16 PM
It so was hard to imagine having successful career in science as a disabled PhD student that eventually I just left.
Who could have guessed that years later I would help create a magazine issue dedicated to highlighting Trailblazing disabled chemists!
cen.acs.org/people/profi...
#DisabledInSTEM
Who could have guessed that years later I would help create a magazine issue dedicated to highlighting Trailblazing disabled chemists!
cen.acs.org/people/profi...
#DisabledInSTEM
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
Today in @science.org, @mikusp.bsky.social reports a method to replace the C2 of pyridines with N, affording pyridazines.
The change from electronically consonant (pyridine) to dissonant (pyridazine) opens retrosyntheses not typically available to the latter.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The change from electronically consonant (pyridine) to dissonant (pyridazine) opens retrosyntheses not typically available to the latter.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
July 17, 2025 at 11:13 PM
Today in @science.org, @mikusp.bsky.social reports a method to replace the C2 of pyridines with N, affording pyridazines.
The change from electronically consonant (pyridine) to dissonant (pyridazine) opens retrosyntheses not typically available to the latter.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The change from electronically consonant (pyridine) to dissonant (pyridazine) opens retrosyntheses not typically available to the latter.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
PhD position available! #ChemSky #PiSky This project is highly interdisciplinary, using organic synthesis to work towards room-temperature quantum technologies.
www.findaphd.com/phds/project... The funding is for Home Fee students, and covers 4 years at the UKRI rate (£22,780 tax free for 2025/26).
www.findaphd.com/phds/project... The funding is for Home Fee students, and covers 4 years at the UKRI rate (£22,780 tax free for 2025/26).
a dog wearing glasses and a lab coat looks at a beaker under a microscope
ALT: a dog wearing glasses and a lab coat looks at a beaker under a microscope
media.tenor.com
July 15, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
PhD position available! #ChemSky #PiSky This project is highly interdisciplinary, using organic synthesis to work towards room-temperature quantum technologies.
www.findaphd.com/phds/project... The funding is for Home Fee students, and covers 4 years at the UKRI rate (£22,780 tax free for 2025/26).
www.findaphd.com/phds/project... The funding is for Home Fee students, and covers 4 years at the UKRI rate (£22,780 tax free for 2025/26).
a dog wearing glasses and a lab coat looks at a beaker under a microscope
ALT: a dog wearing glasses and a lab coat looks at a beaker under a microscope
media.tenor.com
July 9, 2025 at 9:33 AM
PhD position available! #ChemSky #PiSky This project is highly interdisciplinary, using organic synthesis to work towards room-temperature quantum technologies.
www.findaphd.com/phds/project... The funding is for Home Fee students, and covers 4 years at the UKRI rate (£22,780 tax free for 2025/26).
www.findaphd.com/phds/project... The funding is for Home Fee students, and covers 4 years at the UKRI rate (£22,780 tax free for 2025/26).
PhD position available! #ChemSky #PiSky This project is highly interdisciplinary, using organic synthesis to work towards room-temperature quantum technologies.
www.findaphd.com/phds/project... The funding is for Home Fee students, and covers 4 years at the UKRI rate (£22,780 tax free for 2025/26).
www.findaphd.com/phds/project... The funding is for Home Fee students, and covers 4 years at the UKRI rate (£22,780 tax free for 2025/26).
a dog wearing glasses and a lab coat looks at a beaker under a microscope
ALT: a dog wearing glasses and a lab coat looks at a beaker under a microscope
media.tenor.com
July 9, 2025 at 9:33 AM
PhD position available! #ChemSky #PiSky This project is highly interdisciplinary, using organic synthesis to work towards room-temperature quantum technologies.
www.findaphd.com/phds/project... The funding is for Home Fee students, and covers 4 years at the UKRI rate (£22,780 tax free for 2025/26).
www.findaphd.com/phds/project... The funding is for Home Fee students, and covers 4 years at the UKRI rate (£22,780 tax free for 2025/26).
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
Excited to share in @nature.com today: Broadband transient full-Stokes luminescence spectroscopy - detecting the most subtle changes in light polarization over time with unprecedented sensitivity. Grateful for the team that made this possible!😊 www.nature.com/articles/s41... #chirality #light
Broadband transient full-Stokes luminescence spectroscopy - Nature
A high-sensitivity, broadband, transient, full-Stokes spectroscopy setup is demonstrated, which can detect quickly varying small signals from chiral emitters.
www.nature.com
June 26, 2025 at 6:23 AM
Excited to share in @nature.com today: Broadband transient full-Stokes luminescence spectroscopy - detecting the most subtle changes in light polarization over time with unprecedented sensitivity. Grateful for the team that made this possible!😊 www.nature.com/articles/s41... #chirality #light
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
The government response to this petition is infuriating.
“Maternity and other types of Parental Pay are intended to provide a measure of financial security to support parents whilst they are away from the workplace; they are not a replacement of earnings” except they literally are??? Please sign:
“Maternity and other types of Parental Pay are intended to provide a measure of financial security to support parents whilst they are away from the workplace; they are not a replacement of earnings” except they literally are??? Please sign:
Petition: Raise statutory maternity/paternity pay to match the National Living Wage
Statutory maternity and paternity pay is £4.99 per hour for a full-time worker on 37.5 hours per week - approximately 59% less than the 2024 National Living Wage of £12.21 per hour for workers aged 21...
petition.parliament.uk
June 25, 2025 at 9:13 PM
The government response to this petition is infuriating.
“Maternity and other types of Parental Pay are intended to provide a measure of financial security to support parents whilst they are away from the workplace; they are not a replacement of earnings” except they literally are??? Please sign:
“Maternity and other types of Parental Pay are intended to provide a measure of financial security to support parents whilst they are away from the workplace; they are not a replacement of earnings” except they literally are??? Please sign:
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
🚨Just out in Nature!
We have offered a general method for 1,2-difunctionlization of arenes via a differential 1,2-diborylation!
rdcu.be/esXq8
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Congratulations to Jingfeng!
We have offered a general method for 1,2-difunctionlization of arenes via a differential 1,2-diborylation!
rdcu.be/esXq8
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Congratulations to Jingfeng!
June 23, 2025 at 9:59 PM
🚨Just out in Nature!
We have offered a general method for 1,2-difunctionlization of arenes via a differential 1,2-diborylation!
rdcu.be/esXq8
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Congratulations to Jingfeng!
We have offered a general method for 1,2-difunctionlization of arenes via a differential 1,2-diborylation!
rdcu.be/esXq8
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Congratulations to Jingfeng!
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
Want another thing to worry about in organic chemistry reproducibility? How about stirring bar behavior?
Stir Bars Can't Be Ignored
www.science.org
June 19, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Want another thing to worry about in organic chemistry reproducibility? How about stirring bar behavior?
Huge congratulations to Shain for passing his PhD viva! You did really well and should be proud of your achievements 🥳Thanks so much for all your hard work and for starting the group with me.
(P.S. If anyone is confused about the timeline - the viva was on Friday but I only got the picture now)
(P.S. If anyone is confused about the timeline - the viva was on Friday but I only got the picture now)
June 17, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Huge congratulations to Shain for passing his PhD viva! You did really well and should be proud of your achievements 🥳Thanks so much for all your hard work and for starting the group with me.
(P.S. If anyone is confused about the timeline - the viva was on Friday but I only got the picture now)
(P.S. If anyone is confused about the timeline - the viva was on Friday but I only got the picture now)
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
The UK's paternity leave is the worst in Europe. It frustrates dads, burdens mums, and impoverishes us all. The fight for better parental leave is not just a demand for common decency, but for common sense.
observer.co.uk/news/opinion...
observer.co.uk/news/opinion...
Dads deserve a better paternity deal – so does the economy
New fathers who want to bond with their babies are treated in a derisory way in the UK – and that harms us all
observer.co.uk
June 11, 2025 at 6:12 PM
The UK's paternity leave is the worst in Europe. It frustrates dads, burdens mums, and impoverishes us all. The fight for better parental leave is not just a demand for common decency, but for common sense.
observer.co.uk/news/opinion...
observer.co.uk/news/opinion...
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
Happy #pride month! We believe that chemistry is for everyone. In the face of opposition that threatens the progress we've made, it's never been more important for us to promote equality of opportunities and make chemistry as open, inclusive and diverse as it should be: buff.ly/1dShs0l #ChemSky
June 4, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Happy #pride month! We believe that chemistry is for everyone. In the face of opposition that threatens the progress we've made, it's never been more important for us to promote equality of opportunities and make chemistry as open, inclusive and diverse as it should be: buff.ly/1dShs0l #ChemSky
Are you a chemist with 3-8 years of post-PhD research experience and want to join the amazing Chemistry Dept @qmul.ac.uk ? If yes, please have a look at our call for expressions of interest in the Royal Society University Research Fellowship scheme. #ChemSky www.seresearch.qmul.ac.uk/ccr/news/498...
Expression of Interest for Royal Society University Research Fellowships
The Department of Chemistry at Queen Mary University of London is looking to support applicants for the Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF).
The URF is a prestigious fellowship program...
www.seresearch.qmul.ac.uk
June 4, 2025 at 10:20 AM
Are you a chemist with 3-8 years of post-PhD research experience and want to join the amazing Chemistry Dept @qmul.ac.uk ? If yes, please have a look at our call for expressions of interest in the Royal Society University Research Fellowship scheme. #ChemSky www.seresearch.qmul.ac.uk/ccr/news/498...
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
It’s Mary Anning’s birthday, so time to share @katebeaton.bsky.social’s brilliant cartoon again.
May 21, 2025 at 11:31 AM
It’s Mary Anning’s birthday, so time to share @katebeaton.bsky.social’s brilliant cartoon again.
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
Just out! Our peer-reviewed critique of the Cass Review has been published by BMC Medical Research Methodology. Please read and share. We show that the Cass Review is fatally flawed and should not be the basis for policy or practice in transgender healthcare.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
May 10, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Just out! Our peer-reviewed critique of the Cass Review has been published by BMC Medical Research Methodology. Please read and share. We show that the Cass Review is fatally flawed and should not be the basis for policy or practice in transgender healthcare.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
I'm a bit late to the party but this looks like a very simple but fantastically useful reaction. Nice work! #ChemSky #PiSky
Light-promoted aromatic denitrative chlorination, from Fei Ye, Gui-Juan Cheng and co-workers.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#chemsky
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#chemsky
Light-promoted aromatic denitrative chlorination - Nature Chemistry
Due to the inert CAr–NO2 bond, direct denitrative substitution reactions with unactivated nitroarenes are challenging. Now, using visible-light irradiation, a strategy has been developed to enable dir...
www.nature.com
May 8, 2025 at 8:58 AM
The Department of Chemistry at Queen Mary University of London is looking to support applicants for the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Fellowship. For people <4 years post PhD at the deadline (17th September). #ChemSky See www.seresearch.qmul.ac.uk/ccr/news/496...
Expression of Interest for Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Fellowship
The Department of Chemistry at Queen Mary University of London is looking to support applicants for the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Fellowship. These fellowships are for people who are less t...
www.seresearch.qmul.ac.uk
April 30, 2025 at 3:53 PM
The Department of Chemistry at Queen Mary University of London is looking to support applicants for the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Fellowship. For people <4 years post PhD at the deadline (17th September). #ChemSky See www.seresearch.qmul.ac.uk/ccr/news/496...
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
For the avoidance of any doubt: trans women are women. Trans men are men. Anyone presuming to know more about someone’s lived experience than they do is in an unjustifiable position.
April 26, 2025 at 9:50 AM
For the avoidance of any doubt: trans women are women. Trans men are men. Anyone presuming to know more about someone’s lived experience than they do is in an unjustifiable position.
Reposted by Jochen Brandt
One of the most useful tables for a chemist to remember, and it illustrates why computational chemistry and drug design are hard: even a 1.3 kcal/mol error in calculating an equilibrium conformational or binding free energy difference will essential translate into a 90:10 estimation error
April 24, 2025 at 5:20 PM
One of the most useful tables for a chemist to remember, and it illustrates why computational chemistry and drug design are hard: even a 1.3 kcal/mol error in calculating an equilibrium conformational or binding free energy difference will essential translate into a 90:10 estimation error
Congratulations to Afra and Yaroslavna on finishing their UG research projects and presenting their results at the poster symposium. And well done to Afra for winning the MSci poster prize - amazing work! Thank you both for your time in the group and to Katherine and Jayden for the supervision.
April 11, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Congratulations to Afra and Yaroslavna on finishing their UG research projects and presenting their results at the poster symposium. And well done to Afra for winning the MSci poster prize - amazing work! Thank you both for your time in the group and to Katherine and Jayden for the supervision.