George O’Doherty
Degrees/Education
1993 Ph.D. The Ohio State University
1987 B.S. Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute
Area(s) of Expertise
Organic, Bio-organic & Medicinal Chemistry
Research Interests
My research group has been working in two related areas of organic synthesis: carbohydrate synthesis and natural product synthesis. The unifying theme that connects our research in these two areas is our use of asymmetric catalysis and the desire to create new antitumor and antimicrobial compounds. Fundamental to our approach is the development of highly efficient routes that transform, via catalysis, inexpensive achiral starting materials into enantiopure products, which are poised for the conversion into complex molecules with biologically relevant properties (i.e. enantioselective synthesis of a new “chiral pool” via asymmetric catalysis). Some successful examples of this de novo approach to both natural product and carbohydrate targets are outlined below. The ultimate goal of these synthetic projects is to develop enantioselective routes to these complex molecules in sufficient quantities that are amenable for biomedical investigations.
Location
117 Hurtig Hall