With this renewal award in the Environmentally Benign Chemical Synthesis and Processing Program, the Synthetic Organic Program is supporting the research of Dr. Tomas Hudlicky of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Florida. Professor Hudlicky will focus his work on developing effective methods of preparation of pure synthetic intermediates (synthons) from halogenated aromatic waste products and the use of the synthons in the concise synthesis of value-added compounds. The focus of this research will be the biooxidation of highly substituted aromatic substrates with arene dioxygenases expressed in recombinant bacterial strains and the development of electrochemical methods for the further oxidation of arene-cis-diol metabolites to the corresponding diol-epoxides, tetrols and diol-aziridines. The new metabolites and synthons will find application in synthetic approaches to Amaryllidaceae and morphine alkaloids, glycocongugates and unnatural isomers of inositol derivatives.
