Efforts to prepare naturally occurring molecules of biological importance are extremely valuable to health sciences in the United States. Firstly, these efforts provide an exceptional training ground for scientist who will develop the next generation of important drugs. Second, these efforts always provide a unique means of accessing structure activity relationship data for the natural products themselves and compounds in similar structural classes. Thirdly, these efforts always result in the development of new strategies and chemistry that can be used for the synthesis of complex molecules. This proposal describes three such synthetic efforts. The most mature is directed toward a class of squalene synthase inhibitors known as the phomoidrides. Efforts in this area have spawned new chemistry in the field of aryl oxidation; further developments in this area are proposed along with a second synthetic effort directed toward ryanodol, an important calcium channel blocker. Finally, a fruitful collaborative effort looking at the biology of alpha, beta-epoxy ketone-containing natural products is described that is destined to provide important biological information about molecules in the sorbicillin class.
