Zylstra 9803688 This award supports a 24 month Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Postdoctoral Fellowship for Dr. Eric Zylstra at the University of Tokyo in Japan. Dr. Zylstra will work with Dr. Tohru Fukuyama, Professor, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Tokyo on a research project entitled "Enantioselective Total Synthesis of Vinblastine." The proposed research will provide a direct, efficient route to the antitumor drug vinblastine. Although this compound has a long history of use in chemotherapy, its structural complexity hinders the preparation of analogs. One commonly chosen synthetic strategy toward vinblastine is the coupling of catharanthine or a catharanthine-like precursor with the structurally-related compound vindoline. Investigations will be undertaken on the usefulness of some novel palladium methodology for assembling the vinblastine skeleton. This should lead to development of a more direct, efficient route to its synthesis making it, and structurally similar analogs, more readily available for the preparation of new, more potent vinblastine analogs. ***
