The Development of Efficient Synthetic Methods for C-C Bond Formation

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The development of new synthetic organic methods has the potential to influence the discovery of new molecules that are significant to the pharmaceuticals and materials industries. This is particularly true for methods which produce C-C bonds, as they inherently lead to products of greater complexity. Despite the tremendous progress made in the field of synthetic chemistry, the synthesis of complex targets can often be limited by the availability of starting materials, or by inefficient methods which require harsh conditions and suffer from low atom economy. Widely applicable methods which instead utilize abundant and cost effective substrates, or operate under mild conditions are therefore of great interest. Our Goal is to develop new robust synthetic methodology focusing on the construction of C-C bonds. Two main avenues will be pursued: i) the development of highly active homogeneous transition metal catalysts bound to strongly coordinating ligands for C-C bond forming methods and ii) the mechanistically driven development of mild C-C bond forming reactions by using in-situ mechanistic studies to understand and address limitations of existing methodology. Together, these two avenues converge on the discovery of mild, efficient and widely applicable synthetic protocols for the preparation of challenging molecules from abundant precursors. The impact of these projects will be significant as methods using molecular catalysis are widely used by researchers in chemical industry and academia. In particular, the research outcomes will be directly relevant to the pharmaceutical industry which represents a major growing part of the Canadian economy between the numerous start-ups and large scale companies located across the country. Much of the specific research in drug design and discovery relies on the need for robust catalytic methods for the generation of carbon-carbon bonds. As such, the discoveries resulting from this project will directly translate into the preparation of organic targets of interest to the growing scientific industries within Canada. This work will further train HQP providing learning opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students, preparing them for the Canadian job market by developing their skills in air and moisture sensitive synthesis, as well as in the purification and characterization of organic and organometallic molecules. My research team will include highly diverse students that I will mentor on research theses devoted to synthetic and mechanistic chemistry.