Molecular chirality plays a critical role in chemistry, biology, and medicine. To study and better understand conformational chirality, it is necessary to obtain structurally interesting molecules that exhibit this form of chirality. Our lab utilizes total synthesis and methodological development to obtain conformationally chiral natural products of interest. We believe...
Organic compounds which contain one or more nitrogen atoms are especially important as they are disproportionately represented among biologically active molecules. As a result, significant effort has been focused on the development of methods for the synthesis of nitrogenous molecules. We identified the aminal as an under-explored functional group. Despite...
In this dissertation, my research work on excited state dynamics of small organic molecules in solutions is presented. Using femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS) as the main experimental tool, the excited state hydrogen-bonding dynamics (ESHBD) of Coumarin 102, a common laser dye molecule, in ethanol solution is examined with <150...
An instrument was developed which performs analysis of the
oxygen content of air by means of a commercial polarographic oxygen
electrode. The oxygen analyzer is part of a portable instrument
which converts the current from the oxygen electrode into a pulse
whose width is proportional to the oxygen concentration. This...
Verrucarol is the sesquiterpene portion of a number of macrocyclic di- and triesters of potential medicinal importance. In this study, a novel approach to the synthesis of this fungal metabolite is presented. An A-B-C route was investigated in which C-3 and C-4 of the C-ring were emplaced using a [2+2]...
The thermal and anionic rearrangements of substituted 1-vinyltrans-
cyclotridec-3-en-l-ol compounds have been studied to determine
what effects substituents would have on the sigmatropic shift when
placed on the two positions of the 1-vinyl group.
For the thermal rearrangements, the a-substituted vinyl-trans-cyclotridecenols
gave both the [3,3] and [1,3] shift products of...
An asymmetric approach to the synthesis of byssochlamic acid (1) is
described. Regioisomeric enzymatic differentiation is described in the selective
hydrolysis of dimethyl ester 30 by porcine liver esterase. Chiral dimethyl ester 42
was prepared by desymmetrization of cyclopentene 34 using porcine liver
esterase. A key intramolecular [2+2]cycloaddition-cycloreversion
photometathesis of...