This thesis is separated into three distinct projects. First, synthetic studies towards the furanosteroid viridin shown in part I. Second, synthetic studies towards the diperene obtusanal shown in part II. Third, the analysis, characterization, and synthesis of coronene derivatives towards their application in organic batteries shown in part III. Significant...
Mandelalide A has attracted considerable interest from the synthetic community due to its intriguing structure and important cytotoxic activity. Madeirolide A, a structurally related macrolide, shows promising antifungal activity but no appreciable anticancer activity. This dissertation describes synthetic studies toward mandelalide A, madeirolide A and their hybrid structures.
Part I...
A series of compounds, 7-8 and 20-25, were tested as competitive inhibitors of 2,5-dihydroxyacetanilide epoxidase I (DHAE I) and DHAE II. A Hammett plot was constructed for each enzyme to determine the effect of electron density on inhibition. DHAE I gave a linear, highly correlated plot (r²=0.91) that signifies the...
This dissertation is separated into two parts according to the two major distinct research projects. In Part I, the full account of synthetic studies toward C10-functionalized lycopodium alkaloids is described. In Part II, the detailed discussion on the exploration of the Pummerer cyclization methodology and its application to the total...
The structural architecture present in marine toxin azaspiracid - 20 stereocenters, 9 rings, 3 separated spirocenters - has attracted considerable synthetic attention. Our efforts toward the synthesis of azaspiracid have led to the completion of both C₁-C₂₆ northern and C₂₇-C₄₀ southern halves. Herein, the
synthesis of southern FGHI ring system...
Part I of this dissertation includes the chronological synthetic background of mandelalide A as well as the synthesis of the C1-C14 glycosylated southern subunit of mandelalide. A key aspect of the synthesis includes a novel silver-catalyzed cyclization (AgCC) of a propargylic benzoate to construct the substituted cis-pyran ring system present...
Tethering fluorophores on metal nanoparticles for metal enhanced fluorescence (MEF) has attracted a lot of attention from scientists interested in fluorescence based approaches. MEF has many benefits in fluorescence related techniques, because the analytical signal increases and enables potentially lower detection limits or better sensitivity. Many types of nanoparticles have...
The bimolecular reaction of two carbenoid species resulting in the formation of a carbon-carbon double bond (pi-system), referred to herein as carbenoid eliminative cross-coupling (CEXC), involves a series of three fundamental steps: (i) ate-complex formation (transmetalation), (ii) 1,2-metalate rearrangement, and (iii) beta-elimination. All three steps are stereospecific and so the...
Recently researchers have discovered that groups of small non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) play regulatory roles in gene expression and participate in various biological processes. For example, pathogenesis of many diseases, cell cycle regulation, and signaling pathways. Intracellular and live cell imaging of small ncRNA groups will reveal their relative expression levels...
In this dissertation, I describe spectroscopic studies of jet-cooled polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and one nitrogen substituted PAH (PANH) using pulsed field zero kinetic energy (ZEKE) photoelectron spectroscopy and resonantly enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) spectroscopy. Recently, there has been a demand for far-infrared (FIR) spectral information of astrophysically relevant molecules...
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Wei Kong
In this dissertation, I describe spectroscopic studies of jet-cooled polycyclic