Tags: Organic Seminar


Looking Back and Building Forward: Natural Products Biosynthesis

Natural products are organic secondary metabolites produced by all forms of life. In their native environment, natural products mediate intra- and interspecies communication. Bioinhibitory activities of natural products make them medicinally attractive– majority of clinically used drugs and pharmaceuticals are or are derived from natural products. The Agarwal laboratory seeks to understand how gene encoded enzymes construct natural product…


Pfizer Medicinal Chemistry Seminar

As part of the the Spring 2022 Organic Seminar series, on January 27th from 11:10 am we will host a virtual seminar by three representatives from Pfizer’s medicinal chemistry team: Medicinal Chemistry at Pfizer – Dr. Sheneika Jackson Sheneika Jackson completed her Ph.D. at the University of Georgia in May 2021. Under the guidance of Dr. Eric Ferreira, she worked on the development of molecular scaffolds for C-H…


New Tools for Making Computational Quantum Chemistry Simpler

Computational quantum chemistry can be used to gain insight into reactivity and simulate properties or spectra. However, conducting computational studies often requires using command line interfaces, which have a steep learning curve. A simpler alternative to command line interfaces is graphical user interfaces. Existing graphical interfaces are often insufficient to handle every task that one encounters during a computational study: building…


Advancing Photo-Click Chemistry towards Macrocyclization and Sequence-defined Oligomers

Nature uses sequence-defined (having a precise sequence of units) monodisperse (same molecular weight) polymers for the data storage and transfer (DNA, RNA), for the control of properties and structure (proteins), for the efficient catalysis of various reactions (enzymes), and many more. However, these bio-macromolecules have limited stability and lack chemical and structural diversity. Current methods for the preparation of sequence-defined…


Mono-cyclopropenone Caged Dibenzocyclooctyne Triazole Derivatives: Fast-reacting, Water Soluble SPAAC Reagents

Strain-promoted azide-alkyne cycloaddition (SPAAC) has emerged as a popular click chemistry technique1. Over just the past few decades, a plethora of cycloalkyne SPAAC reagents have been developed for use as biorthogonal probes in cell and protein studies2-4, peptide stapling reagents5, and crosslinkers in polymers6. Most of these cycloalkyne reagents suffer from issues that hinder their utility; these being low aqueous solubility and slow…


Stereoselective Synthesis and Applications of Sulfonylcyclopropanols as Modular Cyclopropanone and Homoenolate Equivalents

Cyclopropanone derivatives have long been regarded as unusable and elusive synthetic intermediates, mainly owing to their prominent ring strain and kinetic instability. In this work, we report the enantioselective synthesis of sulfonylcyclopropanols, shown to be modular and versatile synthetic equivalents of the corresponding cyclopropanone derivatives. These reagents were found to smoothly react in a variety of reaction manifolds, including…


Guest Speaker: Prof. Qiu Wang


Beyond Cp* - Mechanism Guided Design of a New Rhodium Complex for Enantioselective C-H Functionalization

The development of new reactions and catalysts for the oxidative cross-coupling of C-H bonds with C-H, N-H and O-H bonds will be discussed. Strategically, these reactions allow for the synthesis of complex molecules from their constituent components, minimizing the need for functional group activation and manipulation. Specifically, rhodium and iridium catalysts for oxidative allylic C-H functionalization of terminal, di- and trisubstituted…


Semi-Aromatic Biobased Polyesters Derived From Lignin and Cyclic Carbonates

Aromatic and semi-aromatic polyesters are valuable commodity plastics. Accounting for roughly 10% of the global plastic economy, they boast easy processability and robust thermal and mechanical properties.1,2 However, aromatic monomers used for the synthesis of these polyesters are derived almost exclusively from petroleum feedstocks.3,4 While many aliphatic polyesters derived from biosources have seen commercial success in recent years,…


In Situ Cross-linkable Hydrogel via Strain-Promoted Azide-Alkyne Cycloaddition

Alginate is a family of natural origin polysaccharides which could be utilized in hydrogel preparation at mild pH and physiological conditions. The hydrogel based on alginate performed particular relevance on wound dressing materials for the treatment of acute or chronic wounds due to the high water content, biocompatibility, flexibility, porosity, smoothness and ability to incorporate and release therapeutic agents. In this project, we designed…
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