James L. Gleason
Professor
Organic Chemistry

email: jim.gleason@mcgill.ca
phone: 514-398-5596
fax: 514-398-3797
lab phone: 514-398-6225
Office: 309A, Otto Maass Chemistry Building

Department of Chemistry
McGill University
801 Sherbrooke St. West
Montreal, QC
H3A 0B8



 

 
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SPECIAL COVID-19 PROCEDURES
Borrowing Chemicals: GleasonLabSOP.pdf
Solvent Still Access: Our stills are temporarily unavailable to those not in the Gleason/Tsantrizos lab.      
                                    Contact Prof. Gleason if you require access

Recent Group News

As of Sept 2022 - follow us on Twitter for more recent group news.

1 Sept 2022     Welcome to new graduate students Vanessa Watts and Spencer Petras, along with
                                undergraduate researchers Sean Elliot and Abigail Robson

18 July 2022    Congratulations to Ryan Barrett on defending his Ph.D. Thesis.  Ryan will be doing
                                a posdoc with Chris Vanderwal at U.C. Irvine

30 June 2022   Congratulations to Josie Warnica on a successful Ph.D. defense.  Josie will be doing
                                a posdoc with Vy Dong at U.C. Irvine

7 June 2022     Our latest paper on the cycloadditions of heptafulvalene, and how they aren’t antarafacial
                                as predicted 50 years ago, is out.  Congrats to Anthony Izzotti

25 April 2022    Our latest paper on vitamin D receptor agonist/HDACi hybrids is out.  Congrats to Ali
                                Mansour and David Scarlata

22 March 2022  Our paper on the synthesis of 4-oxoisotaxodione is out.  Congrats to Sam Plamondon

25 Feb 2022      Congratulations to Sam Plamondon for successfully defending his Ph.D. thesis.  Sam     
                                will be working at Ventus Therapeutics.

9 Nov 2021        Our paper on antiandrogen/HDACi hybrids is out.  Congratulations to Ryan

1 Nov 2021        Jim promoted to Full Professor

30 Aug 2021       Congratulations to Sam Plamondon for receiving a Paraza-Corialis Prize (Bronze) for his
                                talk at the CSC-IUPAC conference

21 July 2021      Our paper on incorporating cation–π stabilization in organocatalysts is published in
                                Can J. Chem.  Congratulations to Josie.

26 Oct 2020       Congratulations to Adam Elmehriki on defending his Ph.D. thesis.  Adam is doing a      
                                postdoc with Varinder Aggarwal (Bristol)

31 Aug 2020       Our joint paper with Ken Houk on the mechanism of the organocatalytic Cope is published
                                in J. Am. Chem. Soc.  Congratulations to June.

20 Aug 2020        Welcome to new graduate students Amelia Caza and Angela Novakovic

15 May 2020        After a 2-month halt due to COVID-19, we are cleared to run at 40% capacity

4 May 2020          Welcome to Andrew Little who will be doing an NSERC USRA project 

30 April 2020        Congratulations to Yufei Wang on successful submission of her M.Sc. thesis.  Yufei will
                                work short term at Intellisyn before beginning her Ph.D. with Echavarren in Tarragona

19 March 2020      Our lab, along with all others at McGill, is shut down temporarily due to COVID-19

22 Jan 2020          New CIHR grant with Alyson Fournier, Tony Mittermaier and Nic Moitessier developing
                                novel 14-3-3 PPI agonists.

21 Jan 2020          Welcome to undergraduate Melissa Lehnert.  Melissa will be investigating higher-order 
                                cycloadditions

9 Jan 2020            Welcome to new M.Sc. student Kellly Burchell-Reyes.  Kelly will be working on the
                                oxy-Cope reaction

22 Nov 2019         Our paper on spiroalkylation/alkylation applied to puraquinonic acid is published
                                in Organic Letters. Congrats to Adam.

31 Oct 2019          Our paper on organocatalytic polyene cyclizations is published in Angewandte 
                                Chemie.  Congrats to Sam, Josie and Dainis.

26 Sept 2019        Welcome to new Ph.D. student Zhizhong Gao, who will be working on antiestrogens.
                                Also, good luck to Adam Elmehriki who will be starting his postdoc with Varinder
                                Aggarwal at U. Bristol (UK).          

1 Sept 2019           Welcome to new Ph.D. student Anthony Izzotti (back after having spent summer
                                  2018 with us).  Anthony will be working on our organocatalysis projects.

13 Aug 2019          Our paper on aminoalkylation of [1.1.1]propellane is out. Congrats to Jon Hughes and 
                                    David Scarlata 

1 May 2019            Welcome to SURA undergraduate Maria Gorenflo

21 Nov 2018          Congratulations to Nicklas Häggman on a successful Ph.D. defense.

20 Nov 2018          Congratulations to Sam Plamondon on receiving an award for best oral presentation
                                    at the QOMSBOC conference in York, ON.

20 Sept 2018         Our paper on organocatalytic Diels-Alder reactions is out. Congrats to Nick, Benny
                                    June and Dainis

1 Sept 2018           Welcome to new M.Sc. student, Hayley McMillan.  Hayley will be working on our 
                                    organocatalysis projects.

17 July 2018          Our paper on tamoxifen/HDACi hybrids is out.  Congrats to Anthony and Ben.

6 June 2018           Congratulations to Jon Hughes for winning the Udho-Parsini-Diwan Prize for the        
                                    best paper by a graduate student at McGill University for 2017.

2 May 2018            Welcome to USRA undergraduate Anthony Izzotti 

1 May 2018            Congratulations to Yufei Wang on receiving an FRQNT fellowship.

8 February 2018    Congratulations to Jon Hughes for a successful Ph.D. defense.  Good luck at Merck!

23 January 2018    New CIHR grant with Sylvie Mader: “Mechanisms of action of antiestrogens: towards 
                                    improved treatment of relapse in ER+ breast cancer”

17 December 2017  Our full paper on the synthesis of virosaine is out.  Congrats to Jon Hughes

30 August 2017       Welcome to new graduate students Donald Campbell, Hyun June Jun, David         
                                   Scarlata and Yufei Wang

25 August 2017      Our latest paper on vitamin D / HDACi hybrids is out. 

15 August 2017      Congratulations to Jon Hughes and Nick Häggman for landing jobs at Merck 
                                   (Rahway) and Intellisyn

12 July 2017           Our paper on the synthesis of virosaine A is out.  Congrats to Jon Hughes
                                 on a great piece of work

16 May 2017           New CIHR grant - “Bifunctional non-secosteroidal vitamin D analogues 
                                  as novel cancer chemotherapeutics”

10 May 2017        Our paper on organocatalytic Michael reactions is out.  Congrats to 
                                Florent, Adamo, Nick, Jon and Damien

8 May 2017          Welcome to Thomas Bräuer, visiting student from Konrad Tiefenbacher’s
                                group at U. Basel

1 May 2017          Welcome to summer students - Alexandra Lacoste, Daisy He and 
                                 Dean Noutsious

23 March 2017     New NSERC Engage grant with Inception Sciences - “Development of a
                                 general approach to substituted bicyclo[1.1.1]pentanes”Home_files/GleasonLabSOP.pdfhttps://twitter.com/Gleason_Labhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1002/chem.202201418https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10740-9https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.orglett.2c00444https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960894X21006685https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/cjc-2021-0150https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.0c08427https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.orglett.9b03887https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201911952https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.orglett.9b02426https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejoc.201801009https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0968089618304334?via=ihubhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040402017312863http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007601730225Xhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201706273/fullhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejoc.201700469/fullhttps://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.orglett.2c00444shapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1shapeimage_1_link_2shapeimage_1_link_3shapeimage_1_link_4shapeimage_1_link_5shapeimage_1_link_6shapeimage_1_link_7shapeimage_1_link_8shapeimage_1_link_9shapeimage_1_link_10shapeimage_1_link_11shapeimage_1_link_12shapeimage_1_link_13shapeimage_1_link_14shapeimage_1_link_15shapeimage_1_link_16