Professor Aidan Mcdonald
Professor In, Chemistry
Biography
Career:
Associate Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, The University of Dublin, 2017 - date
Assistant Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, The University of Dublin, 2012 - 2017
Postdoctoral Fellow, Bioinorganic Chemistry, The University of Minnesota, 2008 - 2012
Ph.D., Organometallic Chemistry, Utrecht University, 2003 - 2008
B.A. (Hons) Chemistry, gold medalist, The University of Dublin, 1998 - 2002
Honours/Awards:
Irish Research Council Laureate Award. 2022
Awarded EUROBIC Medal by Society for Biological Inorganic Chemistry. 2020
Elected to Fellowship of the University of Dublin. 2020
Royal Society of Chemistry Sir Edward Frankland Fellowship, 2017
Elected member of the Young Academy of Europe, 2017
Royal Society/SFI University Research Fellowship, 2016
EU/Horizon 2020 ERC Starting Grant, 2015
EU/FP7 Marie-Curie Fellowship, 2013
NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2009
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
O'Sullivan, Patrick and Previtali, Viola and Twamley, Brendan and Marmion, Celine J. and McDonald, Aidan R. and Rozas, Isabel, Platinum(II) complexes of aryl guanidine-like derivatives as potential anticancer agents: between coordination and cyclometallation, RSC Advances, 15, (5), 2025, p3427 â" 3438
Biswas, Sachidulal and Kelly, Oscar Reid and Twamley, Brendan and McDonald, Aidan R., A Structural and Functional Mimic of P680+, Angewandte Chemie - International Edition, 64, (3), 2025
Das, Agnideep and Twamley, Brendan and Kelly, Oscar R. and Panda, Chakadola and Richardson, Paul and McDonald, Aidan R., High-Valent Cobalt-Difluoride in Oxidative Fluorination of Saturated Hydrocarbons, Angewandte Chemie - International Edition, 2025
Lorna Doyle, Adriana Magherusan, Shuangning Xu, Kayleigh Murphy, Erik R. Farquhar, Florian Molton, Carole Duboc, Lawrence Que, Jr., Aidan R. McDonald, Class Ib Ribonucleotide Reductases: Activation of a Peroxido-MnIIMnIII to Generate a Reactive Oxo-MnIIIMnIV Oxidant, Inorganic Chemistry, 63, (4), 2024, p2194-2203
Philipp Heim, Sachidulal Biswas, Hugo Lopez, Robert Gericke, Brendan Twamley, Aidan R. McDonald, A CoII-Hydroxide Complex That Converts Directly to a CoII-Acetamide during Catalytic Nitrile Hydration, Inorganic Chemistry, 63, (17), 2024, p7896-7902
Krajewska, A.M. and Paiva, A.E. and Morris, M. and McDonald, A.R., Reduction of Exfoliated MoS2 Nanosheets Yields the Semi-Conducting 2H-polymorph Rather Than the Metallic 1T-polymorph, European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, 2024
Doyle, L.M. and Bienenmann, R.L.M. and Gericke, R. and Xu, S. and Farquhar, E.R. and Que, L. and McDonald, A.R., Preparation and characterization of MnIIMnIII complexes with relevance to class Ib ribonucleotide reductases, Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, 257, (112583), 2024
Marta Lovisari, Oscar Reid Kelly, Aidan R. McDonald, Hydrocarbon Oxidation by a Porphyrin"""Cation Radical Complex, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 62, (31), 2023
Philipp Heim and Giuseppe Spedalotto and Marta Lovisari and Robert Gericke and John O{\textquotesingle, Synthesis and Characterization of a Masked Terminal Nickel-Oxide Complex, Chemistry {\textendash, 2023
Philipp Heim, Robert Gericke, Giuseppe Spedalotto, Marta Lovisari, Erik R. Farquhar, Aidan R. McDonald, Aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbon hydroxylation via a formally NiIV"O oxidant, Dalton Transactions, 52, (9), 2023, p2663-2671
Aleksandra M. Krajewska, Aislan Esmeraldo Paiva, Michael Morris, Aidan R. McDonald, Synthesis, Characterisation, and Functionalisation of Charged Two"Dimensional MoS2, Chemistry " A European Journal, 29, (57), 2023
Chakadola Panda, Onyinyechukwuka Anny-Nzekwue, Lorna M. Doyle, Robert Gericke, Aidan R. McDonald, Evidence for a High-Valent Iron-Fluoride That Mediates Oxidative C(sp3)-H Fluorination, JACS Au, 3, (3), 2023, p919-928
Marta Lovisari, Robert Gericke, Brendan Twamley, Aidan R. McDonald, Comparing Metal"Halide and "Oxygen Adducts in Oxidative C/O"H Activation: AuIII"Cl versus AuIII"OH, Inorganic Chemistry, 60, (20), 2021, p15610-15616
Anna Company, Aidan R. McDonald, Bio-Relevant Chemistry of Nickel, 2021
Heim, P. and Twamley, B. and O'Brien, J. and McDonald, A.R., Unexpected Intramolecular Phosphite-Mediated Amide Coupling To Yield 3,5-Dioxo-1-Piperazines, ChemistrySelect, 6, (36), 2021, p9663-9668
Giuseppe Spedalotto, Marta Lovisari, Aidan R. McDonald, Reactivity Properties of Mixed- and High-Valent Bis("-Hydroxide)-Dinickel Complexes, ACS Omega, 2021
Chakadola Panda, Lorna M. Doyle, Robert Gericke, Aidan R. McDonald, Rapid Iron(III)"Fluoride"Mediated Hydrogen Atom Transfer, Angewandte Chemie, 2021
Prasenjit Mondal, Marta Lovisari, Brendan Twamley, Aidan R. McDonald, Fast Hydrocarbon Oxidation by a High"Valent Nickel"Fluoride Complex, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2020
Marta Lovisari, Aidan R. McDonald, Hydrogen Atom Transfer Oxidation by a Gold"Hydroxide Complex, Inorganic Chemistry, 2020
Xin Chen, Aleksandra M. Krajewska, Cormac McGuinness, Amy Lynes, David McAteer, Nina Berner, Georg Duesberg, Jonathan N. Coleman, Aidan R. McDonald, Tuning the Photo"electrochemical Performance of Ru II "Sensitized Two"Dimensional MoS 2, Chemistry " A European Journal, 2020
Prasenjit Mondal, Aidan R. McDonald, Phenol Oxidation by a Nickel(III)"Fluoride Complex: Exploring the Influence of the Proton Accepting Ligand in PCET Oxidation, Chemistry " A European Journal, 2020
Robert Gericke, Lorna M. Doyle, Erik R. Farquhar, Aidan R. McDonald, Oxo-Free Hydrocarbon Oxidation by an Iron(III)-Isoporphyrin Complex, Inorganic Chemistry, 2020
Giuseppe Spedalotto, Robert Gericke, Marta Lovisari, Erik R. Farquhar, Brendan Twamley, Aidan R. McDonald, Preparation and Characterisation of a Bis"""Hydroxo"Ni III 2 Complex, Chemistry " A European Journal, 2019
Adriana M. Magherusan, Subhasree Kal, Daniel N. Nelis, Lorna M. Doyle, Erik R. Farquhar, Lawrence Que, Jr., Aidan R. McDonald, A Mn II Mn III "Peroxide Complex Capable of Aldehyde Deformylation, Angewandte Chemie, 54, (17), 2019, 5718-5722
Caitilín McManus, Prasenjit Mondal, Marta Lovisari, Brendan Twamley, Aidan R. McDonald, Carboxamidate Ligand Noninnocence in Proton Coupled Electron Transfer, Inorganic Chemistry, 58, (17), 2019, p4515-4523
Duenpen Unjaroen, Robert Gericke, Marta Lovisari, Daniel Nelis, Prasenjit Mondal, Paolo Pirovano, Brendan Twamley, Erik R. Farquhar, Aidan R. McDonald, High-Valent d7 NiIII versus d8 CuIII Oxidants in PCET, Inorganic Chemistry, 2019
Pirovano, P., McDonald, A.R., Synthetic High-Valent M"O"X Oxidants, European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, 2018, (5), 2018, p547-560
Prasenjit Mondal, Paolo Pirovano, Ankita Das, Erik R. Farquhar, Aidan R. McDonald, Hydrogen Atom Transfer by a High-Valent Nickel-Chloride Complex, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 140, (5), 2018, p1834--1841
Paolo Pirovano, Brendan Twamley, Aidan R. McDonald, Modulation of Nickel Pyridinedicarboxamidate Complexes to Explore the Properties of High-valent Oxidants, Chemistry - A European Journal, 24, (20), 2018, p5238-5245
Xin Chen, Ciara McGlynn, Aidan R. McDonald, Two-Dimensional MoS2 Catalyzed Oxidation of Organic Thiols, Chemistry of Materials, 2018
Magherusan, A. M.; Zhou, A.; Farquhar, E. R.; García-Melchor, M.; Twamley, B.; Que Jr, L.; McDonald, A. R. , Mimicking class I b Mn2-ribonucleotide reductase: A MnII2 complex and its reaction with superoxide, Angewandte Chemie - International Edition, 130, 2018, p930 - 934
Paolo Pirovano, Aidan R. McDonald, Cover Feature: Synthetic High-Valent M-O-X Oxidants (Eur. J. Inorg. Chem. 5/2018), European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, 2018, (5), 2018, p546--546
Xin Chen, David McAteer, Cormac McGuinness, Ian Godwin, Jonathan N. Coleman, Aidan R. McDonald, RuII Photosensitizer-Functionalized Two-Dimensional MoS2 for Light-Driven Hydrogen Evolution, Chemistry - A European Journal, 24, (2), 2018, p351--355
Pirovano, P., Berry, A.R., Swart, M., McDonald, A.R., Indirect evidence for a NiIII-oxyl oxidant in the reaction of a NiIIcomplex with peracid, Dalton Transactions, 47, (1), 2018, p246-250
Adriana M. Magherusan, Daniel N. Nelis, Brendan Twamley, Aidan R. McDonald, Catechol oxidase activity of comparable dimanganese and dicopper complexes, Dalton Transactions, 2018
Magherusan, A.M., Zhou, A., Farquhar, E.R., García-Melchor, M., Twamley, B., Que, L., Mcdonald, A.R., Mimicking ClassIb Mn
Paolo Pirovano, Erik R. Farquhar, Marcel Swart, Aidan R. McDonald, Tuning the Reactivity of Terminal Nickel(III)"Oxygen Adducts for C"H Bond Activation, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 138, (43), 2016, p14362--14370
Chen, X., Berner, N.C., Backes, C., Duesberg, G.S., McDonald, A.R., Functionalization of Two-Dimensional MoS2: On the Reaction between MoS2 and Organic Thiols, Angewandte Chemie - International Edition, 55, (19), 2016, p5803-5808
Ure, A.D., Lázaro, I.A., Cotter, M., McDonald, A.R., Synthesis and characterisation of a mesocyclic tripodal triamine ligand, Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, 14, (2), 2016, p483-494
Chen, X., Mcdonald, A.R., Functionalization of Two-Dimensional Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides, Advanced Materials, 2016, p5738-5746
Xin Chen, Aidan R. McDonald, ChemInform Abstract: Functionalization of Two-Dimensional Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides, ChemInform, 47, (36), 2016
Pirovano, P., Farquhar, E.R., Swart, M., Fitzpatrick, A.J., Morgan, G.G., McDonald, A.R., Characterization and reactivity of a terminal nickel(III)-oxygen adduct, Chemistry - A European Journal, 21, (9), 2015, p3785-3790
Claudia Backes, Nina C. Berner, Xin Chen, Paul Lafargue, Pierre LaPlace, Mark Freeley, Georg S. Duesberg, Jonathan N. Coleman, Aidan R. McDonald, Research, Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed., 54, 2015, p2638 - 2642
McDonald, A.R., Dijkstra, H.P., Tethered pincer complexes as recyclable homogeneous catalysts, Topics in Organometallic Chemistry, 54, 2015, p335-370
Backes, C., Berner, N.C., Chen, X., (...), Coleman, J.N., Mcdonald, A.R. , Functionalization of Liquid-Exfoliated Two-Dimensional 2H-MoS2, Angewandte Chemie - International Edition, 54, (9), 2015, p2638-2642
Ure, A.D., McDonald, A.R., Nucleophilic Reactivity of a Metal-Bound Superoxide Ligand, Synlett, 26, (15), 2015, p2060-2066
Pirovano, P., Magherusan, A.M., McGlynn, C., Ure, A., Lynes, A., McDonald, A.R., Erratum: Nucleophilic Reactivity of a Copper(II)-Superoxide Complex (Angewandte Chemie - International Edition (2014) 53 (11991-12005) (DOI: 10.1002/anie.201311152)), Angewandte Chemie - International Edition, 53, (45), 2014
Paolo Pirovano, Adriana M. Magherusan, Ciara McGlynn, Andrew Ure, Amy Lynes, Aidan R. McDonald, Berichtigung: Nucleophilic Reactivity of a Copper(II)-Superoxide Complex, Angewandte Chemie, 126, (45), 2014, p12199--12199
Hugo Nolan, Niall McEvoy, Maria O'Brien, Nina C. Berner, Chanyoung Yim, Toby Hallam, Aidan R. McDonald, Georg S. Duesberg, Molybdenum disulfide/pyrolytic carbon hybrid electrodes for scalable hydrogen evolution, Nanoscale, 6, 2014, p8185-
Paolo Pirovano, Adriana M. Magherusan, Ciara McGlynn, Andrew Ure, Amy Lynes, Aidan R. McDonald, Nucleophilic Reactivity of a Copper(II)-Superoxide Complex, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., (53), 2014, p5946-
Aidan R. McDonald, Lawrence Que, Jr., High-Valent Nonheme Iron-Oxo Complexes: Synthesis, Structure, and Spectroscopy , Coordination Chemistry Reviews, 2013, p414-
Aidan R. McDonald, Katherine M. van Heuvelen, Yisong Guo, Eckard Münck, Lawrence Que, Jr., Characterization of a Thiolato-Iron(III)-Peroxide Dianion Complex, Angewandte Chemie, 2012, p9132-
McDonald, A.R., Guo, Y., Vu, V.V., Bominaar, E.L., Münck, E., Que Jr., L., A mononuclear carboxylate-rich oxoiron(iv) complex: A structural and functional mimic of TauD intermediate 'J', Chemical Science, 3, (5), 2012, p1680-1693
Aidan R. McDonald, Yisong Guo, Van V. Vu, Emile L. Bominaar, Eckard Münck, Lawrence Que, Jr., A Mononuclear Carboxylate-Rich Oxoiron(IV) Complex - A Structural and Functional Mimic of TauD 'J', Chemical Science, 2012, p1680-
Mas-Ballesté, R., McDonald, A.R., Reed, D., Usharani, D., Schyman, P., Milko, P., Shaik, S., Que Jr., L., Intramolecular gas-phase reactions of synthetic nonheme oxoiron(IV) ions: Proximity and spin-state reactivity rules, Chemistry - A European Journal, 18, (37), 2012, p11747-11760
McDonald, A.R., Que Jr., L., Iron-oxo complexes: Elusive iron(V) species identified, Nature Chemistry, 3, (10), 2011, p761-762
Aidan R. McDonald, Michael R. Bukowski, Erik R. Farquhar, Timothy A. Jackson, Kevin D. Koehntop, Mi-Sook Seo, Raymond De Hont, Audria Stubna, Jason A. Halfen, Eckard Münck, Wonwoo Nam, Lawrence Que, Jr., Sulfur Versus Iron Oxidation in an Iron-Thiolate Model Complex, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2010, p17118-
McDonald, A.R., Dijkstra, H.P., Suijkerbuijk, B.M.J.M., Van Klink, G.P.M., Van Koten, G., "Click" immobilization of organometallic pincer catalysts for C - C coupling reactions, Organometallics, 28, (16), 2009, p4689-4699
McDonald, A.R., Franssen, N., van Klink, G.P.M., van Koten, G., 'Click' silica immobilisation of metallo-porphyrin complexes and their application in epoxidation catalysis, Journal of Organometallic Chemistry, 694, (14), 2009, p2153-2162
Gerard van Koten, Aidan McDonald, Roger Pretot, Roman Kolly, Oliver Dosenbach , Electroluminescent Ionic Dendritic Host-Guest Materials, 2009, WO/2009/087064
Aidan R. McDonald, Davide Mores, Celso de Mello Donegá, Cornelis A. van Walree, Robertus J. M. Klein Gebbink, Martin Lutz, Anthony L. Spek, A. Meijerink, Gerard P. M. van Klink, Gerard van Koten, Supramolecular Dendri-LED's: Anionic Organometallic Phosphors Embedded in Polycationic Dendritic Species, Organometallics, 2009, p1082-
Aidan R. McDonald, Martin Lutz, Lars S. von Chrzanowski, Gerard P. M. van Klink, Anthony L. Spek, Gerard van Koten, Probing the mer- to fac- Isomerisation of Tris-Cyclometallated Homo and Heteroleptic (C,N)3 Iridium(III) Complexes, Inorganic Chemistry, 2008, p6681-
Aidan R. McDonald, Christian Müller, Dieter Vogt, Gerard P. M. van Klink, Gerard van Koten, BINAP-Ru and Rh Catalysts Covalently Immobilised on Silica and their Repeated Application in Asymmetric Hydrogenation Catalysis, Green Chemistry, 2008, p424-
Lars S. von Chrzanowski, Martin Lutz, Anthony L. Spek, Aidan R. McDonald, Gerard P. M. van Klink and Gerard van Koten, 2-Carboxy-4-(hydroxymethyl)pyridinium chloride hemihydrate, Acta Cryst. , E27, 2007, po1121-
H. P. Dijkstra, M. Q. Slagt, A. R. McDonald, C. A. Kruithof, R. Kreiter, A. M. Mills, M. Lutz, A. L. Spek, W. Klopper, G. P. M. van Klink, G. van Koten, para-Functionalized NCN-Pincer Palladium(II) Complexes: Synthesis, Catalysis and DFT Calculations, Eur. J. Inorg. Chem. , 2003, p830-
M. Q. Slagt, H. P. Dijkstra, A. R. McDonald, R. J. M. Klein Gebbink, M. Lutz, D. D. Ellis, A. M. Mills, A. L. Spek, G. van Koten, Self-Assembly of p-Nitro NCN-Pincer Palladium Complexes into Dimers through Electron Donor-Acceptor Interactions , Organometallics, 2003, p27-