My colleagues and I have studied a variety of problems in organic chemistry. We have developed new methods for accomplishing problematic organic transformations, studied the mechanisms of these and other methods with an emphasis on understanding the origin of stereoselectivity, and have applied our methods to the synthesis of complex natural and unnatural products. More recently, in collaborative research, we have studied the rational design and synthesis of inhibitors for biochemical processes including bacterial membrane modification and bacterial colony formation, and the synthesis of molecules to probe the mechanistic requirements for energy transfer in geometrically constrained acene dimers. The common theme of this research is the design and study of molecules for a specific function, whether it be a chemical, biological, or photophysical functions.
keywords
Organic synthesis, methods development, the application organic synthesis to solve problems in medicine, biology, and energy
