Education: A.B., Princeton University, 1987 Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1992

Our group develops new synthetic methods and applies them to the synthesis of natural products and biologically relevant compounds. Students learn skills that prepare them for employment in the pharmaceutical and contract synthesis industries.

Research Project 1: Double Annulation

Our group has discovered a suite of reactions we call the double annulation route to fused bicyclic compounds. In the first step of the double annulation, two good carbon acids connected by a tether and an ethynyl ketone undergo a double Michael reaction to give a carbocyclic or heterocyclic compound in what is formally an [n + 1] annulation.