SusChEM: Complexity-Building Reactions from Feedstock Chemicals

化学部的化学合成项目支持Jeffrey Johnson教授的项目。约翰逊教授是北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校化学系的教员。从发现新药到开发新材料，有机分子的合成对各种各样的科学努力都是至关重要的。通常情况下，这些合成产物都是在一个小分子的基础上由不同的官能团组成的。约翰逊教授正在开发新的方法，从廉价、丰富的原料化学物质中快速获取这些有价值的小起始块。转化过程中使用的催化剂不会在反应中消耗，同时使用的化学物质对环境友好，如分子氧和分子氢，以确保过程的可持续性。该项目为培养各种背景的研究生、本科生和高中生提供了一个理想的平台。约翰逊教授的团队历来注重包容性和多样性，作为系主任，他在继续推进促进部门整体多样性的举措方面处于非常有利的地位。创造高度功能化、立体化学定义的小分子构建块是许多科学努力的核心，特别是在药物发现和化学生物学领域。一个持续的挑战是开发工具，不仅要提供新的化学实体，而且要以可持续的方式进行。本提案旨在开发新的化学反应和序列，在化学合成中这两个问题的交叉点进行操作。该项目揭示了应变环化合物反应的独特机制。预计这种将应变环范式扩展到来自商业的、现成的原料化学品的子结构，可能为迄今未知的化学物质提供独特、有效的途径。在一些化学操作中，所研究的反应从平面芳烃迅速发展成复杂的三维结构。外展计划将研究团队整合到北侧小学的STEAM日当地社区，该小学为北卡罗来纳州的大多数非白人学生提供服务。

The Chemical Synthesis Program of the Chemistry Division supports the project by Professor Jeffrey Johnson. Professor Johnson is a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The synthesis of organic molecules is central to a wide variety of scientific endeavors ranging from the discovery of new drugs to the development of new materials. Typically, these synthetic efforts have at their origin a small molecule that it built upon by various functional groups. Professor Johnson is developing new methods for rapidly accessing these valuable small starting blocks from inexpensive, abundant feedstock chemicals. The transformations are accomplished using catalysts that are not consumed in the reactions along with environmentally-friendly chemicals like molecular oxygen and molecular hydrogen in order to ensure that the processes are sustainable. This project provides an ideal platform for training graduate, undergraduate, and high school students from all backgrounds. Professor Johnson's group has a history of inclusion and diversity, and as department chairperson, he is in an excellent position to continue advancing initiatives that contribute to the overall diversity of the department.The creation of highly functionalized, stereochemically-defined small molecule building blocks is central to many scientific endeavors, particularly in the realm of drug discovery and chemical biology. An ongoing challenge is the development of tools that not only deliver novel chemical entities, but do so in a way that is sustainable. This proposal seeks to develop new chemical reactions and sequences that operate at the intersection of these two issues in chemical synthesis. This project provides reveals uniquely enabling mechanisms for reactions of strained ring compounds. It is expected that this expansion of the strained ring paradigm into substructures derived from commercial, readily available feedstock chemical may provide unique, efficient access to heretofore unknown chemical matter. The reactions under study rapidly develop complex three-dimensional architectures from planar aromatics in a few chemical operations. The outreach plan integrates the research team into the local community for STEAM Day at Northside Elementary School, which serves a majority non-white student population in North Carolina.