Presidential Young Investigator Award/Development of New Organic Synthetic Reactions

肯·费尔德曼博士是总统青年调查员计划的新获奖者，他对合成有机化学感兴趣。在加入宾夕法尼亚州立大学之前，费尔德曼博士在工业界工作过一段时间，丰富了他的经验。研究的重点是开发新的成键工艺，用于合成复杂的天然产物。这项研究涉及两个项目，这两个项目都是为了实现有限和预定数量的小“单体”单元的多组分冷凝。通过这种方法，人们可以有效地从简单的前体构建复杂的有机结构。这两个项目都利用了包括启动、传播和终止阶段的反应序列。通过精确地控制这三个事件的时间，可以控制序列的传播部分的长度，从而控制产品分子中并入的“单体”单元的总数。最终，这些“低聚”片段将用于天然产物的合成，这些天然产物本身具有小段重复的分子单元，例如聚乙酸酯衍生的多烯抗生素。

Dr. Ken Feldman is a new awardee under the Presidential Young Investigators Program, with interests in synthetic organic chemistry. Dr. Feldman's experience was enriched with a stay in industry before joining the staff at the Pennsylvania State University. The emphasis of the research is on the development of novel bond-forming processes useful for the synthesis of complex natural products. The research involves two projects, both of which are designed to effect a multicomponent condensation of a finite and predetermined number of small "monomer" units. By this methodology, one can efficiently construct a complex organic structure from simple precursors. Both projects utilize reaction sequences which include initiation, propagation, and termination stages. By precisely controlling the timing of these three events, one can control the length of the propagation portion of the sequence and hence control the overall number of "monomer" units which are incorporated in the product molecule. Ultimately, these "oligomeric" segments will be useful in the synthesis of natural products which themselves have small segments of repeating molecular units, such as the polyacetate-derived polyene antibiotics.