News & Events

When

Date - September 4, 2015
1:00 pm

What

Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center
City University of New York

“New Synthetic Methods and Strategies for Drug Discovery and Development”

Abstract:

‘Privileged’ therapeutic pharmacophores offer exciting opportunities for a broad range of drug development pursuits through a common synthetic strategy.  Our lab has been working on the development of a general and effective method for the synthesis of 7-hydroxytropolones, which are troponoids that have been identified as lead drug targets for a variety of diseases from HIV and malaria to cancer and bipolar disorder.  The key step in our strategy is an oxidopyrylium cycloaddition/ ring-opening sequence, which has proven effective in the synthesis of a library of new and structurally diverse 7‑hydroxytropolones.  We are simultaneously carrying out several medicinal chemistry studies aimed at optimizing these compounds for potency and selectivity against HIV, Hepatitis B, Herpes Simplex Virus, drug-resistant bacteria and cancer.   Our synthesis and medicinal chemistry studies thus inspire advancements in each other:  Medicinal chemistry studies inform us of both the advantages and limitations of our chemistry in its current form and direct new synthetic methods developments, while discoveries made through our synthetic chemistry studies provides new and exciting opportunities for drug-development pursuits.