Sep 21
Chemistry Department Seminar: Emma Southgate '14
The transformation of chemical feedstocks into building blocks for synthesis is an important tool for organic chemists, providing access to key fragments of 
drug compounds, materials, and agroceuticals from readily available sources. Aromatic compounds, such as benzene, are a key example of such feedstocks, and the study of reactions of these molecules has been a fundamental area of organic synthetic chemistry for many years. While numerous strategies have been developed for dearomatizing simple aromatic structures, there have been few examples of installing functional groups into these frameworks during the dearomatization step. Using a key visible light-mediated photocycloaddition, our laboratory has developed a platform for selectively dihydroxylating simple arenes, converting them into high-value intermediates for the synthesis of biologically active compounds. Using our approach, we have achieved the synthesis of important small molecule targets, including the anti-cancer alkaloids lycoricidine and narciclasine.