Natural Product Synthesis: A Platform for Chemical Discovery

Our laboratory has ongoing research programs targeting the chemical syntheses of several natural products, including members of the epidithiodiketopiperazines, the ent-kauranoids, and the acutumine alkaloids. The densely packed arrays of heteroatoms and stereogenic centers that constitute these polycyclic targets challenge the limits of current synthetic methodology. This seminar will describe our latest progress in both our methodological and target-directed synthesis endeavors