Professor Ryan Shenvi
Departmental Seminar
Professor Ryan Shenvi
Department of Chemistry
The Scripps Research Institute
Host: Professor Nick Race
Synthesis of CNS-active plant metabolites
Natural products (NPs) populate areas of chemical space that are remote from commercial compounds and thus challenging to access, modify and study. Our group develops new chemistry to accelerate access to nodes in NP space. These syntheses can be leveraged to assign mechanism of action, remove structural liabilities and perturb target selectivity. Recently, we developed new cross-coupling methods to access two alkaloids from Galbulimima and used this synthetic platform to discover their biological targets. We also developed short synthetic routes to picrotoxinin (PXN) and a more complex analog (5MePXN) that simplifies synthetic access, stabilizes the scaffold and allows diversification to probe selectivity among ligand-gated ion channels (LGICs).
Research
Dr. Shenvi develops chemistry to solve broad problems in complex molecule synthesis, and answers fundamental questions of organic chemistry, with an emphasis on natural products and the invention of new chemical methods. The Shenvi lab has published methods to synthesize important classes of CNS-active metabolites including potent nAChR inhibitors and Illicium terpenes, sometimes called ‘neurotrophic terpenes.’ The lab proposed that these latter metabolites enhance neurite outgrowth through binding to the CysLoop family of neurotransmitter-gated ion channels–probably GABAa receptors. Our chemistry allows us to match the combinatorial nature of these receptors with a combinatorial assembly of terpenes.
Professor Ryan Shenvi
Professor, The Scripps Research Institute, 2019-present
Associate Professor, The Scripps Research Institute, 2014-2019
Assistant Professor, The Scripps Research Institute, 2010-2014
NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University (E.J. Corey), 2008-2010
Ph.D., The Scripps Research Institute (P.S. Baran), 2003-2008
B.S., Pennsylvania State University (R.L. Funk), 1999-2003