The straightforward laboratory preparation of structural motifs commonly found in therapeutic agents is a major driving force in catalysis-based reaction design. In our laboratory we have adopted cooperative catalysis, an approach that emulates mechanisms encountered in enzymatic activity. In such a regime, merges of two (or more) simultaneous and complementary catalysis events are merged to forge a single chemical bond, via hitherto inaccessible chemical reactivity. Despite the infancy of this area, it promises much for the design of new, efficient and operationally trivial catalytic asymmetric reactions, and expedite the design, development and manufacture of medicines to manage and treat diseases. Based on exciting preliminary data we have obtained in the arena of cooperative catalysis, the program detailed in this proposal will provide the scientific community with straightforward, reliable and flexible methods for chemical synthesis This work will significantly impact human health and medicine by establishing routine synthetic protocols for the preparation of valuable molecular scaffolds, which will contribute to the design and development of new clinical agents.
The concise and efficient synthesis of complex molecules is an exceptionally challenging aspect of therapeutic development. The object of this research is to establish new, flexible and general chemical synthesis methods by cooperative (or synergistic) catalysis, the productive merger of two simultaneous catalysis events. We have adopted this strategy, which emulates mechanisms present in enzyme activity, as a key design principle in the development of new chemical methods via hitherto inaccessible chemical reactivity.
| Schwarz, Kevin J; Pearson, Colin M; Cintron-Rosado, Gabriel A et al. (2018) Traversing Steric Limitations by Cooperative Lewis Base/Palladium Catalysis: An Enantioselective Synthesis of ?-Branched Esters Using 2-Substituted Allyl Electrophiles. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl 57:7800-7803 |
| Rush Scaggs, W; Scaggs, Toya D; Snaddon, Thomas N (2018) An enantioselective synthesis of ?-alkylated pyrroles via cooperative isothiourea/palladium catalysis. Org Biomol Chem : |
| Fyfe, James W B; Kabia, Omaru M; Pearson, Colin M et al. (2018) Si-Directed regiocontrol in asymmetric Pd-catalyzed allylic alkylations using C1-ammonium enolate nucleophiles. Tetrahedron 74:5383-5391 |
| Pearson, Colin M; Snaddon, Thomas N (2017) Alkene Photo-Isomerization Inspired by Vision. ACS Cent Sci 3:922-924 |
