Group News

A Visit to the SSPC Recruitment Drive!

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Our research group memebers, Dr. Adam Henwood, Dr. Oxana Kotova and Patrick Manning, attended the SSPC Recruitment Drive at the University of Limerick (Kemmy Business School) on the 8th of May. They had the amazing opportunity to interact with representatives from major chemistry and bimedical companies such as SK Biotek, Boston Scientific, MSD, Pfizer, APC and Eli Llily.

Our members were delighted with the event as they felt that they learned about the variety of opportunities available to them. The event also gave them a space to make new connections We highly thank SSPC for organising this event and hope to see more like this in the future.

AMBER Internal Conference 2024

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The Gunnlaugsson group was delighted to be apart of this years AMBER internal conference held at the stylish Alex Hotel on the 15th of April. We enjoyed the wholesome knowledge exchange and the opening talk from the Deputy Director General of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Ciarán Seoighe.

Many thanks also to the members involved with running the workshops provided. We’re looking forward to the next conference with great anticipation.

Dr. Deirdre McAdams Graduates

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A huge congratulations to the now official Dr. Deirdre McAdams on fully graduating with her Ph.D in Chemistry. We’re proud to see another great member of the group making it across the finish line. We wish Deirdre all the best in her future academic goals!

A New Publication Added to the List!

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The Gunnlaugsson group is happy to announce the publication of a new research article in the journal “Advanced Science“. In the work entitled “Ligand Chirality Transfer from Solution State to the Crystalline Self-Assemblies in Circularly Polarized Luminescence (CPL) Active Lanthanide Systems,” the authors utilised CPL techniques to prove the presence of enantiopure Eu(III) luminescent complexes in the solution, and solid state for their single crystals. Moreover, CPL Laser Scanning Confocal Microscopy (CPL-LSCM) allowed these crystals to be examined in detail by recording enantioselective differential chiral contrast (EDCC) images. These findings open exciting new avenues toward the development of CPL-OLEDs and displays as well as complements the knowledge within CPL research of self-assembled supramolecular systems.

For the full publication please click to following link: https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202307448

This work was started by Drs. David F. Caffrey and Niamh S. Murray and continued by Drs. Tumpa Gorai, Oxana Kotova and Steve Comby. The crystallographic data was analysed by Profs. Miguel Martínez-Calvo and Jonathan A. Kitchen as well as Bláithín Rawson. We also wanted to greatly acknowledge our longstanding collaboration with Prof. Robert D. Peacock from the University of Glasgow, Prof. Robert Pal, and Dr. Patrycja Stachelek from Durham University, without whom CPL as well as CPL-LSCM would not be possible. We thank Science Foundation Ireland, the SFI funded AMBER Center, Irish Research Council and Trinity College Dublin as well as the Royal Society University Research Fellowship and H2020 for financial support of this work. Last but not least, we thank Prof. Thorri Gunnlaugsson for all his efforts in the collaboration!

Thug Niamh a céad caint de a PhD ag an gCeimic as Gaeilge 2024.

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D’freastal Níamh ag an gCeimic as Gaeilge 2024 le ICI YCN ag Ollscoil na hÉireann. Bhí gach duine ag ceiliúradh Seachtain Na Gaeilge 2024 le dúirt gach duine ag caint faoin chemic as Gaeilge. Thug Niamh an chéad caint de a PhD. Bhí Niamh ag caint faoin a tionscadal “Móilíní atá idirghaolmhar go meicniúil agus Micreascópacht” agus a torthaí ag baint lei a cuid oibre. Thaispeáint Niamh a hoibre le íomhanna ón Micreascópacht leictreon a scanadh agus a hoibre le corás btps. Bhi gach cainteoir go hiontach ar fad agus an-suimiuil. Míle buíochas le gach duine ag freastal agus na duine ag eagraíocht an ócáid seo.

Niamh attended Chemic as Gaeilge held by ICI YCN at the National University of Ireland. Everyone was celebrating Seachtain na Gaeilge 2024 by speaking about chemistry in Irish. Niamh gave her first talk of her PhD. Niamh talked about her project tilted “Mechanically interlocking molecules and Microscopy” and the results of her work. Niamh showed her work with SEM images and her work with btp systems. Every speaker/talk was excellent and very interesting. Many thanks to everyone in attendance and the organisers of the event.

A Warm Welcome to our New SS Students

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A very big welcome to our SS students for this year. We’ve taken on four eager students who will generall be working with Napthalimides, Tróger’s bases and BTP’s using click chemistry. Conor Keeley, Emily Rafter, Ewan Tushkanov and Liwia Najda, respectively, have settled in nicely with the group and we hope to see them succeed in their chosen projects.

Conor Keeley

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Conor is very excited for the opportunity to carry out his SS Capstone Research Project in the Gunnlaugsson group. His project is based on Tröger’s bases derived from thiol-functionalised 1,8-naphthalimides. With the aid of other group members, Conor hopes to synthesise his target molecule and obtain full characterisation by the end of the lab phase.

Emily Rafter

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Emily is another student who is focused on satisfying results with the Gunnlaugsson group. Her aim is to carry out research regarding the 2,6-Bis(1,2,3-triazol-4-yl)pyridine (btp) ligand. She will be practicing various lab techniques in order to do this, including understanding and applying the well known procedures for “Click Chemistry.”

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Ewan Tushkanov

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Ewan is a 4th year medicinal chemistry student and he aims to synthesise novel Tröger’s bases with potential to be used in DNA binding and anti-cancer therapeutics. While this seems like a daunting project, he feels confident in his abilities of producing interesting results for his thesis. With previous lab experience from being a summer student, Ewan has settled in quickly.

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Liwia Najda

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Liwia is also a medicinal chemistry student. She is attempting to synthesise supramolecular cages based on aminoquinoline derived Tróger’s base ligands. She has obtained a lot of lab experience since she’s joined us and is now putting in ample effort to hopefully produce a supramolecular cage. We wish her the best of luck!

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A New Visiting Student Joins!

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We’d like to warmly welcome our new visiting student, Dominik Mählmann!

Dominik joined us on the 31st of July, coming in all the way from Germany to work with us and complete a project for his Master’s thesis. Dominik completed his Bachelor’s degree in the University of Münster, Germany in 2022. Within the next 4 months with us, he will be working on a project involving the synthesis of novel macrocycles using naphthalimide fluorophores. He plans to fly back home to Germany after his 4 month period and start his master thesis at the beginning of next year in the Prof. Bart Jan Ravoo group (University of Münster).

We hope he has a sucessful period in our lab and enjoys the experience of being in the Gunnlaugsson group during his stay!

The 16th International Conference on Materials Chemistry (MC16)

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Members of the Gunnlaugsson group participated in the 16th International Conference on Materials Chemistry that was held this year in UCD, Dublin. Our group members were grateful to be there and attended various interesting talks highlighting recent research achievements in various fields of materials chemistry from approaches to material design and discovery to future materials, materials for energy and materials for life.


Well done to Dr. Adam Henwood, Connie Sigurvinsson, Niamh O’Shea, Dr. Oxana Kotova and past member Deirdre McAdams for presenting results of their works as poster presentations.

We thank the organisers for this interesting conference and to our funding agencies who are always supporting our research (AMBER, SSPC, SFI, School of Chemistry TCD).

Laura’s Visit to the University of Valencia

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Laura had the amazing opportunity to visit the University of Valencia on the 27th of April in order to gain additional cell study knowledge. Laura completed a month of cell studies where she learnt all the biological techiches for cultivating cells and testing her compounds. This was done with the aid of Isabel Abanades Lazaro and her group at the Crystal Engineering Lab (CEL), which is part of the Institute of Molecular Science (ICMol) at the University of Valencia. Congratulations to Laura for making another big commitment towards her research!