Discovery and development of efficient methods for the enantioseiective synthesis (preparation of a handed molecule in a single hand form) of organic molecules is critical to the successful development of efficacious new therapeutics. Such methods allow therapeutics to become accessible in a highly desirable pure form, at a low cost and without generation of toxic side products. Such factors that can significantly reduce the amount of time between the initial discovery and availability to patients from all economic segments of the society. Among such useful synthesis methods, those that are promoted by a catalyst (where small amounts of a catalysts lead to a lot of highly valuable product) and promote carbon-carbon bond formation (one of the most common bonds in nature) are particularly significant. In this proposal, we propose to design, discover and develop several new and user-friendly catalysts for the preparation of C-C bonds that will prove critical to the synthesis of a wide range of medicinally important and biologically active molecules. Our projects will have several important features: a) They focus on new catalysts that can be used on other important reactions and not just those that will be studied by us;that is, our new catalyst will have a broad impact on the research of scientists elsewhere interested in accomplishing the above goals, b) Our studies focus on the development of methods that deliver important molecules that cannot be prepared by any other protocol, or If they can, they are far less efficient. We will design and develop methods that allow chemists to take readily available and relatively inexpensive materials and convert them, with the aid of catalysts developed in this project, to highly valuable compounds that can be used to access precious medicinally active agents. In addition to designing new catalysts and methods, through applications to synthesis of biologically active molecules, we are also interested in demonstrating the utility of such methods, as well as identifying their shortcomings.
In this program, we develop catalysts that efficiently promote reactions that can be used to prepare, in a timely and cost effective manner, a wide range of molecules that are critical to human health care and would otherwise not be accessible. Therefore, In conjunction with developing new and unique catalysts, we test the utility of such catalysts by applying them to the preparation of biologically active molecules.
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