Rate My Professor Matthew Tredwell

Dr Matthew Tredwell served as Senior Lecturer in Medicinal Chemistry in the School of Chemistry at Cardiff University from 2019 to 2026, with a joint appointment between the Schools of Chemistry and Medicine. He earned his undergraduate degree and PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Oxford in 2007. Following postdoctoral research positions at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, he launched his independent career as a group leader at the PET Centre, Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, before moving to the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in 2015. At Cardiff, Tredwell led several research projects funded by major UK research councils, including '18F-Difluoromethylation: The Missing Link in Radiochemistry for Positron Emission Tomography' (2021-2025), '18F-Fluorocubanes: Radiolabelled Bioisosteres of 18F-Aryl Fluorides' (2019-2021), 'Asymmetric Synthesis of Chiral Cubanes' (2024-2027), 'Construction of 18F-Perfluorinated Motifs by Mechanistic Leverage with Fluorine' (2021-2024), and 'Electrifying the Synthesis of Fluorine-18 Radiotracers' (2020-2021). He also contributed as co-investigator on initiatives like 'Validation of an Improved Synthesis of 18F-Flumazenil' (2020-2021).

Tredwell's research specializes in organofluorine chemistry, radiochemistry, and molecular imaging, with a focus on developing efficient 18F-fluorination methods for positron emission tomography (PET) radiotracers, particularly for neuroimaging. Notable publications include 'A General Copper-Mediated Nucleophilic 18F Fluorination of Arenes' (2014), '[18F]Difluorocarbene for Positron Emission Tomography' (2022), 'Photoredox Nucleophilic (Radio)fluorination of Alkoxyamines' (2024), '18F-Difluoromethyl(ene) Motifs via Oxidative Fluorodecarboxylation with [18F]Fluoride' (2024), 'Radiochemical Synthesis of Alkyl Geminal 18F-Difluoroalkyl Motifs Mediated by Silver(I) Oxide' (2025), and 'The Baeyer-Villiger Oxidation of Cubyl Ketones: A Synthetic Route to Functionalized Cubanols' (2025). His innovations, published in high-impact journals such as Nature, Journal of the American Chemical Society, and Angewandte Chemie, have accumulated over 3,600 citations and been adopted in both academic research and clinical PET studies. Tredwell delivered keynote lectures, including at CAFACHEM 2020, and taught modules such as CH5207: Introduction to the Chemistry of Life.