Professor Shi's research interests are methodological, and he proposes a study of the Simmons-Smith cyclopropanation reaction in order to expand its scope and to develop ways to prepare optically active products. Incorporation of a modifier is expected to result in asymmetric induction as well as increases in reaction rates and selectivities. These modifiers are of two types: protic or Lewis acids including chiral alcohols, and chiral ligands that coordinate zinc, or some combination of the two. Professor Shi has been very active in bringing his expertise in organic synthesis and asymmetric catalysis to the fore in the development of new curricular offerings for graduate students. A new course being planned is bioorganic chemistry, which will emphasize the connections between cellular structure and function, and the chemistry that governs these features and their interactions with drug molecules.
With this CAREER award, the Synthetic Organic Program supports the research and teaching efforts of Dr. Yian Shi of Colorado State University. Professor Shi endeavors to find ways to make the smallest carbon structures that are cyclic in nature, cyclopropanes. The methods that Professor Shi will develop promise to offer new ways to make these compounds while offering precise control over their three-dimensional structure. In the classroom, Professor Shi offers his expertise to graduate students in the form of cutting-edge courses in organic synthesis, asymmetric catalysis, and bioorganic chemistry. Through the NSF-REU site at Colorado State, Professor Shi is also committed to the expansion of undergraduate research students' exposure to the methods and opportunities of the scientific method.
