Professor Sarah Reisman

Professor Sarah Reisman
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
California Institute of Technology

Prof. Reisman will deliver a series of three talks, all of which will take place in 331 Smith Hall:

• Talk 1:  November 11th, 9:45 a.m.  
• Talk 2: November 12th, 4:00 p.m.  
• Talk 3: November 13th, 9:45 a.m.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention: Natural Products and the Chemistry They Inspire

The microbes and plants of the natural world are master chemists, producing secondary metabolites that disarm their enemies and confer evolutionary advantages for survival. These natural products, which include well-known therapeutic agents such as penicillin and taxol, serve not only as medicines but also as powerful tools to probe human biology. At the same time, their structural complexity provides an inspiring platform for advancing the frontiers of synthetic chemistry.   

Our group is engaged in the total synthesis of several architecturally intricate natural products, with a particular emphasis on developing new convergent fragment-coupling and annulation strategies. The densely functionalized frameworks of these molecules, rich in heteroatoms and stereogenic centers, continually challenge the limits of current synthetic technology and motivate the invention of new synthetic methods.   

Over three lectures, I will share results from both our natural product synthesis and our methods development projects. My first seminar will highlight recent advances from our laboratory in the total synthesis of diterpenes, highlighting the application of modern transition metal catalysis in total synthesis. My second seminar will describe our recent work on the development of Ni-catalyzed asymmetric reductive cross-coupling. My third seminar will detail our recent forays into reductive Sm catalysis, including new avenues for asymmetric catalysis.

Sarah Reisman

Professor Sarah Reisman earned a BA in Chemistry from Connecticut College in New London, CT and her Ph.D. in chemistry from Yale University. Following postdoctoral research at Harvard University, in 2008, Sarah joined the faculty at the California Institute of Technology where she is now the Bren Professor of Chemistry and the Norman Davidson Leadership Chair for the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. Research in the Reisman laboratory seeks to advance the science of chemical synthesis. Reisman is recognized as a leader in the area of natural product synthesis, where her group has contributed new strategy-driven approaches to biologically active molecules. Reisman is an editorial board member at Organic Syntheses and an associate editor for the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Reisman has been recognized with several awards for teaching and research, including an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, a Cottrell Scholar Award, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, the Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award, the ACS Elias J. Corey Award, and the Mukaiyama Award.

Host: Professor Ian Tonks