Professor Kevin Lam BSc, MSc, PhD, MRSC, FHEA

Course Participation

• Elements of Drug Discovery (Level 4)
• Further Organic Chemistry (Level 5)
• Intermediate Chemistry (Level 5)
• Advanced Organic Chemistry 1 (Level 6)
• Advanced Organic Chemistry 2 (Level 6)
• BSc Research Project (Level 6)
• Medicinal Chemistry and Biological Chemistry (Level 7)
• MChem Research Project
• MSc Research Project

Awards and Distinctions

• RSC Horizon Prize for Education in Chemistry (2024)
• CAS President’s International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI), Distinguished Scientist (2024)
• Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC, 2023)
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA, 2023)
• American Chemical Society “ECRs who are making a difference” list (2023)
• Thieme Rising Star in Organic Chemistry (2023)
• University of Greenwich Most Impactful Research Award (2023)
• Thieme Journals Award (2020)
• University of Greenwich Outstanding Achievement in Research Award (2019)
• Belgian Royal Chemical Society Belgochlore Prize (2006)
• Best Final Dissertation in Chemistry, Université catholique de Louvain (2006)

Professional Memberships

• Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC)
• American Chemical Society
• Electrochemical Society
• Société Royale de Chimie (Belgium)
• International Society of Electrochemistry
• Vermont Cancer Center
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AdvanceHE)

Kevin’s research transforms the way molecules are made by using electrochemistry as a clean, programmable tool for synthesis. His work replaces hazardous reagents with electrons, couples chemistry to renewable power, and develops scalable flow systems to make high-risk chemistry safe and accessible.

His main areas of interest include:

• Green and programmable synthesis: Designing electrosynthetic methods that provide safe access to unstable or highly reactive intermediates such as radicals, carbenes, carbocations and carbanions.
• Electrochemical fluorination: Developing scalable, glovebox-free routes to fluorinated motifs essential for medicines, agrochemicals, and diagnostics.
• Gas- and metal-free hydrogenation: Inventing eHydrogenation methods to perform hydrogenation reactions without the need for hydrogen gas.
• Cyanide-free nitrile chemistry: Introducing eCyanation, which generates cyanide equivalents in situ, eliminating exposure to NaCN or BrCN.
• Open-hardware and flow platforms: Co-developing with Professor Stephen Hilton (UCL) modular, 3D-printed electrosynthetic flow reactors, now used worldwide and commercialised as IKA’s flow platform.
• New ways to perform electrosynthesis: creating a new paradigm for scalable electrochemical reactors.
• Electrochemistry for the energy transition:
  • DualFlow: a €3.9M Horizon Europe Pathfinder project co-led by Kevin, merging redox-flow battery technology with chemical manufacturing. The hybrid platform stores renewable electricity, generates hydrogen, and drives oxidative electrosynthesis of APIs and fine chemicals in a single system.
  • CO₂ reduction and electrocatalysis: developing efficient, green electrocatalysts for carbon recycling and circular economy applications.

Kevin’s vision is to make electrosynthesis universally accessible, bridging chemistry, clean energy, and sustainable manufacturing, and positioning it as a cornerstone technology for the circular economy.

Key funded projects

Our laboratory is currently studying the syntheses of a variety of biologically active molecules with important pharmacological properties. We are particularly interested in developing new organometallic drugs. The concise synthesis of such molecules is a challenge that stimulates us to develop new synthetic methodologies that enable the construction of several bonds and/or rings in a single step and control the chiral centres formed in the process. Much to our delight, our first molecules are now receiving patents in the United States.

Although our research is usually presented in several subgroups, such as the development of new and efficient synthetic methodologies or organometallic chemistry, our topics are thoroughly integrated. For example, various chemical syntheses rely upon the development of new and efficient organometallic catalysts or the use of a new method of activation such as electrochemistry. This close overlap in our research topics has led us to bring our findings all together in a single place.

1. Activation of Organic Molecules Using Electrochemistry

Electrosynthesis is a powerful tool in organic chemistry that circumvents the previous issues by allowing to generate radicals under mild and green conditions. Even though a plethora of transformations have been developed and many of them were successfully used in several industrial processes, the potential of preparative organic electrochemistry remains largely underestimated. However, the growing impetus to look for greener and cheaper alternatives to classic synthetic methodologies prompted us to investigate further new electrochemical methodologies.

We recently developed novel electrochemical methodologies to access highly reactive intermediates such as benzoyloxy and oxycarbonyl radicals.

2. Medicinal Electrochemistry – Collaboration with Professor Claire Verschraegen (James Hospital – Ohio State University)

Our group combined medicinal chemistry, organic synthesis and electrochemistry to develop a new research field: Medicinal Electrochemistry. Our unique approach is to use electrochemistry not only as a way to prepare new libraries of redox active compounds but also as a way to investigate their bioelectrochemical properties. As a result, we developed and patented a new class of organometallic anticancer compounds called Cymanquine

3. Electrocatalysed Reduction of Carbon Dioxide – Collaboration with Professor Richard Kemp (Sandia National Laboratories / University of New Mexico – USA)

While many serious issues and problems now face the human population, perhaps the ones with the largest effects on the long-term viability and success of the planet's inhabitants are those of energy availability and global climate change. These two issues are in part connected in a chemical sense via the simple carbon dioxide (CO₂) molecule.

Despite the view that main group (s and p block) elements are often considered relatively "simple" elements, Professor Kemp has found in his previous work that unusual and surprising chemical behaviour is often demonstrated by complexes of these metals.

Ideally, our overall concept for the preparation of a new CO₂ electroreduction catalyst is to use a) an inexpensive, earth-abundant metal complex, in b) a solvent system that is "green" (ultimately water or ionic liquids), under c) mild conditions of temperature and pressure, to d) interact with and reduce CO₂ to either CO or other small molecules that can be converted into transportation fuels by known catalytic processes, e.g., Fischer-Tropsch, by e) using free electrons capable of being generated by renewable means such as electrochemistry.

The overall concept consists in making an electro-catalyst bearing a Lewis acid and a Lewis base. Much to our delight, the first generation of electrocatalysts has proven to be efficient in reducing CO₂ into CO, however, the exact mechanism is still under investigation.