The focus of this research is the use of chiral alkylation strategy using 2-trifyloxy esters for the synthesis of amino acid derivatives and peptide isosteres. A second area of pursuit will be the use of the concept of differential reactivity to prepare densely functionalized molecules without the use of extensive protection-deprotection schemes. Third, 2-nosyloxy-3-keto esters will be used to develop methodology for the preparation of spiroketal lactones. The thrust of the total project is to afford efficient methods for the synthesis of molecules having interesting biological properties. With this renewal awrad. the Synthetic Organic Program is supporting the research of Dr. Robert V. Hoffman of the department of Chemistry at New Mexico State University. Professor Hoffman will focus his work on developing methods for the enantioselective synthesis of amino acid derivatives, peptides, peptide isosteres and densely functionalized compounds. Finding improved methods for the preparation of these classes of materials is desireable due to the potential for discovering interesting bioactivity.
