Professor Uttam K. Tambar
Professor Uttam K. Tambar
Department of Biochemistry
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Abstract
Stereoselective Reactions with Feedstock Chemicals
For several decades, chemists have designed new approaches to valuable materials that are economically efficient and environmentally benign. To this end, synthetic chemists have developed new synthetic strategies to access complex molecules from simple, inexpensive, and abundant feedstock chemicals. Our research group explores. new methods in this area. We present recent examples from our laboratory of stereoselective reactions with feedstock chemicals as starting materials. First, we discuss our approach to the stereoselective functionalization of unsaturated hydrocarbons through catalytic pericyclic reactions with chalcogen-based reagents. For example, we have developed enantioselective allylic functionalizations of terminal and internal alkenes. Second, we describe our approach to the enantioselective α-alkylation of aldehydes with amino acid derived alkylating reagents. We have devised a strategy for the activation of pyridinium salts derived from amino acids through the formation of light-activated charge transfer complexes with catalytically generated electron rich chiral enamines derived from aldehyde substrates and a chiral amine catalyst.
Uttam K. Tambar
Uttam Tambar moved from India to New York City in 1982. He received his A.B. degree from Harvard University in 2000, where he conducted research with Professors Cynthia Friend and Stuart Schreiber. He obtained his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 2006 under the guidance of Professor Brian Stoltz. After he completed his NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship at Columbia University with Professor James Leighton in 2009, Uttam began his independent research career at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. The Tambar lab is interested in catalysis, natural product synthesis, chemical biology, and medicinal chemistry. Uttam has received several awards, including the Thieme Chemistry Journal Award (2012), Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship (2013), Welch Foundation Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research (2019), Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award (2024), and Dallas Home Bartender Tiki Cocktail Prize (2019). Uttam is currently the Bonnie Bell Harding Professor in Biochemistry, Director of Diversity for Biochemistry, and Director of the Organic Chemistry Graduate Program, and Co-Leader of the Simmons Cancer Center’s Chemistry and Cancer Program.
Homepage: www.utsouthwestern.edu/labs/tambar/
Twitter/X: @TambarLab
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