Automation for the people

High-tech synthesis equipment is relatively common in the pharmaceutical industry, where researchers use high-throughput robotic platforms to optimize reaction conditions or screen catalysts. But these facilities are still rare in academia, and many PhD students in synthetic chemistry have little or no experience with the technology. Academic programs are now aiming to close that skills gap and redefine what it means to be a synthetic chemist. One of these programs is based at the Centre for Rapid Online Analysis of Reactions (ROAR), an automated synthesis suite that opened this year at Imperial College London. ROAR’s launch is part of a broader drive to transform synthetic chemistry into a truly data-driven discipline and may herald a time when automated synthesis suites are as ubiquitous at universities as nuclear magnetic resonance facilities. A stint in process development at BASF, a role analyzing Australia’s natural gas supply chain, and a summer in private