The search for novel reactivity of high energy reactive intermediates will lead to new innovations in Synthesis and catalysis. Our group focus on exploring the unconventional reactivity of high energy reactive intermediates and its applications in organic synthesis. We also seek to develop fundamentally new or underexplored areas of metal and metal free catalyzed reactions that enable the efficient assembly of bioactive scaffolds in an environmentally sustainable fashion.
Carbenes and nitrenes in organic synthesis:
Metal carbenes and nitrenes display an extensive reactive profile. Our major focus will be lie on the development of carbene/nitrene mediated reactions as well as new methods to generate carbene/nitrene precursors and explore their scope and limitations. In order to demonstrate the applications of developed methodologies, we will synthesize bioactive organic molecules.
Ylide mediated trasformations:
Sulfur-based ylides have long been used for various chemical transformations, in particular for the synthesis of small ring systems and various rearrangement reactions. Our objective is to develop metal and metal free trasformations of stable sulfur ylides. By combining the stable sulfur ylides with transition-metal catalysis, we would like to explore new chemical transformations and their applications.
Total synthesis of natural products:
Natural products are privileged chemical entities known as secondary metabolites. The vast structural complexity inherent to this class of molecules often enables them to exhibit specific biological functions, thus making natural products highly relevant in modern drug discovery. In fact, over 50% of all newly approved small-molecule chemical entities ranging from antibacterial to anticancer drugs in the past 30 years have been derived from natural products. Thus, we also focus on the synthesis of bioactive molecules and natural products by utilizing the methods developed in our group.