Tags: Organic Seminar


Tapping into the Full Potential of Light to Enable Chemical Synthesis

Chemical synthesis enables other sciences, and often its development is paramount to their success. This project seeks to develop new strategies for chemical synthesis. Visible light carries with it an enormous amount of energy, the equivalent to heating a reaction to nearly 35,000 oC.  However, most molecules do not absorb this light, and are unaffected by it.  Furthermore, only a few strategies for harvesting this photochemical…


Synthesis of CP-PAH Based Electron Accepting Materials and Highly-Ordered Polymer Nanostructures

This presentation will highlight two recent projects from my laboratory in which we have 1) synthesized new electron accepting materials based on cyclopentafused-polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (CP-PAHs) and 2) created highly ordered polymer nanostructures via polychromophore architectures. In the first part of the talk, both small-molecule and polymeric electron acceptors that incorporate CP-PAH scaffolds will be described.  Our synthetic…


Triazole-Au(I) Catalysis: From stability to selectivity

Homogeneous gold catalysis has been developed explosively during the past decades.  Despite the remarkable electrophilic activation of alkynes by cationic Au(I) catalysts, such as PPh3Au+, one challenge is to overcome their poor stability at high temperature.  However, in order to activate some less reactive substrates, such as internal alkynes, harsher reaction conditions are usually required. As a good σ-donor and π-receptor,…


Decarboxylative Fluoroalkylation and Fluorination Strategies for Modulating Properties of Neurotherapeutics

Alcohols, ketones and aldehydes represent some of the most commonly exploited functional groups for synthetic transformations, and the extensive number of these motifs in natural products and pharmaceutically important building blocks provides a wide variety of potential substrates for transformations. In this field, we have developed new reactions and synthetic sequences using decarboxylative strategies and fluorinated alkenes to convert simple…


PROTEIN CARBOHYDRATE INTERACTIONS AND DISEASE

The recognition of carbohydrates by proteins is an important phenomenon in living systems and also plays a role in numerous diseases. Interference with these interactions is an important goal towards drug development. Interference is possible by multivalent carbohydrates that greatly enhance inhibitory potency compared to monovalent inhibitors. Bacterial lectins and toxins have been explored with the goal of optimizing inhibition by optimizing…


TOTAL SYNTHESIS OF PYRROLE IMIDAZOLE ALKALOIDS ENABLED BY A UNIQUE CHEMOSELECTIVE OXIDATION

Total Synthesis of Pyrrole Imidazole Alkaloids enabled by a Unique Chemoselective Oxidation The Axinellamines, Massadines, and Palau’amine are complex marine natural products belonging to the oroidin family isolated from sponge agelas oroides. Their complex structures, varying modes of functionalities, and biological activities have made them attractive targets for total synthesis. Although isolated in 1993, Palau’amine was not synthesized until…


Bioorthogonal Chemistry: SPAAC and Tetrazine Ligation


The Thiol-ene Reaction and Its Applications


Making DNA more Protein-like for Artificial DNA-Enzyme Discovery: Where Chemistry Meets Molecular Biology

Enzyme mimicry can provide fundamental insight into catalyst design as well new catalysts for therapy, sensing, and fine chemical transformations. Nucleic acid catalysts hold great promise as enzyme mimics yet lack many of the chemical functionalities commonly seen at the active sites of protein enzymes.  Since 1999, co-workers and I have worked to extend the catalytic potential of DNAzymes by incorporating modified dNTPs that are appended…


Chromium(III) Photooxidative Catalysis: Radical Cation Cycloadditions of Diazo Species and Alkenes

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