Event

CCVC Lecture Tour and Graduate Student Invited Lecturer: Sarah Reisman - Necessity is the Mother of Invention: Natural Products and the Chemistry They Inspire

Tuesday, November 6, 2018 13:00to14:30
Maass Chemistry Building Room 10, 801 rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3A 0B8, CA

The chemical synthesis of natural products provides an exciting platform from which to conduct fundamental research in chemistry and biology. Our group is currently pursuing the synthesis of a number of structurally complex natural products, including the diterpenoids ryanodine, talatisamine, and pleuromutilin. The densely-packed arrays of heteroatoms and stereogenic centers that constitute these polycyclic targets challenge the limits of current technology and inspire the development of new synthetic strategies and tactics. This seminar will describe the latest progress in our methodological and target-directed synthesis endeavors.

Bio: Sarah E. Reisman earned a BA in Chemistry from Connecticut College in New London, CT, where she became interested in organic synthesis working in the laboratory of Prof. Timo Ovaska. In 2006, Sarah earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from Yale University, conducting research with Prof. John L. Wood in the area of natural product total synthesis. As an NIH post-doctoral fellow, Sarah pursued studies in the field of asymmetric catalysis working with Prof. Eric Jacobsen at Harvard University. In 2008, Sarah joined the faculty at the California Institute of Technology where she is now a Professor of Chemistry and a Heritage Principal Investigator. Her laboratory seeks to discover, develop, and study new chemical reactions within the context of natural product total synthesis. Prof. Reisman has been recognized with a number of awards for teaching and research, including an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, the Amgen Young Investigator Award, the Novartis Early Career Award, and the Bristol-Myers Squibb Unrestricted Grant in Synthetic Organic Chemistry.

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