SusChEM: Complexity-Building Reactions from Feedstock Chemicals

University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

Investigators

Abstract

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.