Concise Synthesis of Natural Products Based on a Polyfunctional Intermediate Approach

 

Concise Synthesis of Natural Products Based on a Polyfunctional Intermediate Approach

 

Date: 5^th March, 2026 (Thursday)

Time: 12 - 12:50 pm (HKT)

 

Venue: Lecture Theatre T6, Meng Wah Complex

 

 

Department of Chemistry

Westlake University

 

Pengfei earned his PhD at University of Chicago in August 2019 under the supervision of Prof. Scott A. Snyder. From September 2019 to March 2021, Pengfei conducted postdoc research with Prof. Phil S. Baran at Scripps Research, where he was a Hewitt Foundation Fellow working on synthetic electrochemistry. He is currently an assistant professor at Westlake University since April 2021. His research interests include total synthesis of bioactive natural products, synthetic electrochemical chemistry, and medicinal chemistry.

 

Concise and scalable synthesis of complex bioactive molecules provide the foundation for studying their structural-activity relationships, preparing analogs, and advancing therapeutical potential. We present a versatile platform strategy based on polyfunctional intermediates featuring orthogonally reactive groups, facilitating streamlined C–C bond formations to access polycyclic polycyclic natural products with diverse biosynthetic origin. This includes the synthesis of marine diterpenoid scarbrolide A and havellockate, and a 15-step synthesis of triterpenoid glycinoeclepin A, a picomolar soybean cyst nematode hatching factor that previously require 25-39 steps. We further extended this strategy using chemoenzymatic tactics to differentiate groups of similar reactivity, achieving chemo- and stereo-selective sequential functionalization. This enables a 16-step, scalable and stereoselective synthesis of tetrodotoxin, a celebrated natural alkaloid with nanomolar sodium channel blocking properties that previously took 22-69 steps.

 

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