We are a recently established, growing research group at the School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham. Our aim is to explore, design and discover new, synthetically useful organic reactions through synergistic use of computations, machine learning and collaborative experiments.
We have both funded and self-funded PhD positions available, starting October 2025 or potentially sooner. Please get in touch with Dr Ermanis (kristaps.ermanis@nottingham.ac.uk) for more details.
Latest news:
30/09/2024 - Jack Sims has joined the group for his final year MSci project. Welcome and best of luck with your project!
14/10/2023 - Undergraduate students Mimi Clay and Stefany Munoz Robles have joined the group for their final year projects. Welcome and good luck with your projects!
02/10/2023 - Stephen enjoyed his project so much that he has returned to do a PhD in the group. Welcome back!
10/07/2023 - Stephen has been awarded the Nick Besley Prize for the best final year project in computational chemistry - very well done!
16/05/2023 - Kristaps has been awarded the 5th MGMS Frank Blaney Award - many thanks to the Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society!
Dr Kristaps Ermanis
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
School of Chemistry
University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham
NG7 2RD
United Kingdom
Email: kristaps.ermanis@nottingham.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)115 95 13505
Kristaps Ermanis received his PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of York in 2015, where he worked on the total synthesis of phorboxazole B with Prof. Paul Clarke. He then spent two years working in Prof. Jonathan Goodman group in Cambridge working on computational NMR structure elucidation. After a brief postdoc in Prof. Mike Porter group at UCL, he was awarded Leverhulme Early Career in 2017, held at Cambridge. Kristaps started his independent career as Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham in 2021. His research interests are centred around using computational techniques to explore new organic reactions.
Twitter: @ErmanisKristaps
Mastodon: @ermanis@mstdn.science
Our aim is to explore, design and discover new, synthetically useful organic reactions through synergistic use of computations, machine learning and collaborative experiments.
Computational Understanding and Design of Organic Reactions. We have previously
made contributions to several challenging reaction development projects. This includes thorough
mechanistic exploration of an enantioselective Minisci reaction reported by Phipps group (Science
2020, 367, 1246). During this investigation, an unexpected internal deprotonation activation mode
was identified (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 21091).
This mechanistic understanding has since been used in the rational design of an enantioselective alcohol
Minisci reaction (submitted)
Machine Learning for Accelerated Understanding of Chemical Reactions. Chemical machine learning is a rapidly growing area, and has the potential to revolutionize the modelling of wide variety of chemical systems. We have developed a novel explainable molecular representation tailored for chemical property prediction. In combination with kernel ridge regression models and artificial neural network models this method achieves state-of-art performance in electronic and free energy predictions. Importantly, the neural network model is more data-efficient and several times faster than other models of similar accuracy. This work has been recently submitted for publication.
Computational NMR Spectra Prediction and Structure Elucidation. Our group has extensive
experience in using DFT methods for NMR spectra prediction of complex organic molecules, including natural
products, synthetic intermediates and drug candidates. Recently we developed a fully automated workflow DP4-AI
for DFT NMR calculations, raw NMR data interpretation and statistical comparison of the two. This workflow enables effortless structure validation and elucidation, and has been recently published (Chem. Sci.
2020, 11, 4351). The code is open-source and is available on GitHub.
20) A Stereodivergent Multicomponent Approach for the Synthesis of C–N Atropisomeric
Peptide Analogues;
N. J. Roper, A. D. G. Campbell, P. G. Waddell, A. K. Brown, K. Ermanis,* and R. J. Armstrong*
Chem. Sci. 2024, ASAP
19) Synthesis, Structure and Stereodynamics of Atropisomeric N-Chloroamides;
A. D. G. Campbell, N. J. Roper, P. G. Waddell, C. Wills, C. M. Dixon, R. M. Denton,
K. Ermanis,* and R. J. Armstrong*
Chem. Commun. 2024, 60, 3818
18) Interrogating the Crucial Interactions at Play in the Chiral Cation-Directed
Enantioselective Borylation of Arenes;
K. Ermanis,* D. C. Gibson, G. R. Genov and R. J. Phipps*
ACS Catal. 2023, 13, 13043
17) MolE8: Finding DFT Potential Energy Surface Minima Values
from Force-Field Optimised
Organic Molecules with New Machine Learning Representations;
S. Lee, K. Ermanis* and J. M. Goodman*
Chem. Sci. 2022, 13, 7204
16) Hydrogen Atom Transfer Driven Enantioselective Minisci
Reaction of Alcohols;
A. C. Colgan, R. S. J. Proctor, D. C. Gibson, P. Chuentragool, Antti S. K. Lahdenperӓ,
K. Ermanis* and R. J. Phipps*
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2022, 61, e202200266
15) Gold(I)-Catalyzed Nucleophilic Allylation of Azinium Ions
with Allylboronates;
L. O'Brien, S. P. Argent, K. Ermanis* and H. W. Lam*
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2022, 61, e202202305
14) Enantioselective “Clip-Cycle” Synthesis of Di-, Tri- and
Spiro-substituted Tetrahydropyrans;
K. Alomari, N. S. P. Chakravarthy, B. Duchadeau, K. Ermanis* and P. A. Clarke*
Org. Biomol. Chem. 2022, 20, 1181
13) A Computational and Experimental Investigation of the
Origin of Selectivity in the Chiral Phosphoric Acid Catalyzed
Enantioselective Minisci Reaction;
K. Ermanis*, A. C. Colgan, R. S. J. Proctor, B. W. Hadrys, R.
J. Phipps*, and J. M. Goodman*
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020,
142, 21091
12) Asymmetric “Clip-Cycle” Synthesis of Pyrrolidines and
Spiropyrrolidines;
C. J. Maddocks, K. Ermanis* and Paul. A. Clarke*
Org.
Lett. 2020, 22, 8116
11) Synergism of Anisotropic and Computational NMR Methods
Reveals the Likely Configuration of Phormidolide A;
I. E. Ndukwe, X. Wang, N. Y. S. Lam, K. Ermanis, K. L.
Alexander, M. J. Bertin, G. E. Martin, G. Muir, I. Paterson, R.
Britton, J. M. Goodman, E. J. N. Helfrich, J. Piel, W. H. Gerwick* and
R. T. Williamson*
Chem. Commun. 2020, 56,
7565.
10) DP4-AI Automated NMR Data Analysis: Straight from
Spectrometer to Structure;
A. Howarth, K. Ermanis* and J. M. Goodman*
Chem. Sci.
2020, 11, 4351
9) The Optimal DFT Approach in DP4 NMR Structure Analysis –
Pushing the Limits of Relative Stereochemistry Elucidation;
K. Ermanis, K. E. B. Parkes, T. Agback and J. M. Goodman*
Org.
Biomol. Chem. 2019, 17, 5886
8) BINOPtimal: A Web Tool for Optimal Chiral Phosphoric Acid
Catalyst Selection;
J. P. Reid, K. Ermanis and J. M. Goodman*
Chem. Commun.
2019, 55, 1778.
7) Conversion of Alcohols to Phosphorothiolates Using a
Thioiminium Salt as Coupling Agent;
H. Grounds, K. Ermanis, S. A. Newgas and M. J. Porter*
J.
Org. Chem. 2017, 82, 12735.
6) Doubling the Power of DP4 for Computational Structure
Elucidation;
K. Ermanis, K. E. B. Parkes, T. Agback and J. M. Goodman*
Org.
Biomol. Chem. 2017, 15, 8998.
5) The stereodivergent formation of 2,6-cis and
2,6-trans-tetrahydropyrans: experimental and computational
investigation of the mechanism of a thioester oxy-Michael
cyclization;
K. Ermanis, Yin-Ting Hsiao, U. Kaya, A. Jeuken and P. A.
Clarke*
Chem. Sci. 2017, 8,
482.
4) Expanding DP4: Application to Drug Compounds and
Automation;
K. Ermanis, K. E. B. Parkes, T. Agback and J. M. Goodman*
Org.
Biomol. Chem. 2016, 14, 3943.
3) Strategies for the Construction of Tetrahydropyran Rings
in the Synthesis of Natural Products;
P. A. Clarke*, N. M. Nasir and K. Ermanis
Org. Biomol.
Chem. 2014, 12, 3323.
2) The Development of Pot, Atom and Step Economic Syntheses of
Functionalised Tetrahydropyrans, Dihydropyrans and Piperidines;
P. A. Clarke* and K. Ermanis, invited review
Curr.
Org. Chem. 2013, 17, 2025.
1) Synthesis of the C20-C32 Tetrahydropyran Core of the Phorboxazoles
and the C22 epimer via a Stereodivergent Michael Reaction;
P. A. Clarke* and K. Ermanis
Org. Lett. 2012,
14, 5550.
30/09/2024 - Jack Sims has joined the group for his final year MSci project. Welcome and best of luck with your project!
14/10/2023 - Undergraduate students Mimi Clay and Stefany Munoz Robles have joined the group for their final year projects. Welcome and good luck with your projects!
02/10/2023 - Stephen enjoyed his project so much that he has returned to do a PhD in the group. Welcome back!
10/07/2023 - Stephen has been awarded the Nick Besley Prize for the best final year project in computational chemistry - very well done!
16/05/2023 - Kristaps has been awarded the 5th MGMS Frank Blaney Award - many thanks to the Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society!
14/10/2022 - Undergraduate students Emilie Yates and Stephen Harman have joined the group for their final year projects. Welcome!
11/10/2021 - Warm welcome to our new undergraduate students Rachel Heelas, Rohan Patel and Metin Tamer, who have joined the group for their final year projects.
01/07/2021 - Dr Ermanis joins the School of Chemistry at University of Nottingham to start his independent career.
We have both funded and self-funded PhD positions available, starting October 2025 or potentially sooner. Please get in touch with Kris (kristaps.ermanis@nottingham.ac.uk) for more details.
During your PhD in our group you will become an expert in computational organic
chemistry methods, and gain experience in machine learning and programming. You will
have the opportunity to work on reaction development projects in collaboration with
experimental researchers in Nottingham and elsewhere, with plenty of publication
opportunities.
You will also work on further development of automated computational reaction
exploration methods and chemical machine learning applications, providing
opportunities for first-author publications.
In our group we place particular emphasis on structured training of new PhD
students. We will equip you with all of the essential computational skills early on,
so that you can tackle your first reaction modelling project with confidence.
You will then increase the breadth and depth of this knowledge as required by
your research projects, as well as steadily developing into an independent researcher.
We are always keen to support strong candidates for postdoctoral fellowship applications, including Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 fellowships, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowships and others.
The group takes on a number of undergraduate students for their final year research projects, and will also consider hosting summer research projects. If you are interested in conducting a research project in the group, please email Kris (kristaps.ermanis@nottingham.ac.uk).