THE SYNTHESIS OF DRIMANE NATURAL PRODUCTS

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

The drimanes comprise a class of structurally-related, naturally- occurring compounds. Many of these demonstrate significant biological activity, including potent toxicity to a number different cancer cell lines. The research proposed here is the development of a general strategy for the efficient synthesis of a variety of these compounds using a palladium-catalyzed 1,6- diyne cycloreduction reaction. Two specific examples are to be constructed to demonstrate the utility of this strategy. The interesting structural and biological properties of these molecules, puupehenone and mniopetal F, make them excellent candidates for research targets. The successful completion of this work would provide access not only to these compounds, but to their analogs as well, thereby facilitating the discovery of potential therapeutics.