Natural Product Synthesis & Synthetic Method Development Laboratory

The field of total synthesis of natural products has shown dramatic progress over the last century. Through collective efforts of the synthetic community, complex targets have been synthesized using inventive solutions, and those solutions have formed the basis for the development of new drugs and materials. With increasing expectations imposed on synthetic organic chemists, the role of total synthesis (i) as a driving force for the discovery of novel synthetic strategies, (ii) as a platform to discover novel reactions that enable unprecedented bond formations, (Iii) as a tool to enhance the understanding of biosynthetic machineries, and (iv) as a means for generating chemicals of extraordinary biological significance in substantial quantities will continue to grow. With these goals in mind, our group is interested in the synthesis of complex natural products. Our work focuses on exploration of the intrinsic reactivities of molecules and discovery of novel transformations and bond forming strategies. Our pursuit of convergent and flexible synthetic approaches should enable access to not only a single target but various natural products with structural and biosynthetic relevance, or unnatural products with higher biological potency.