Chemistry Seminar: Dr. Jeffrey Bandar, MIT

About the Seminar: Two strategies for the advancement of catalytic asymmetric synthesis will be discussed in this seminar. First, the development of new catalyst platforms using aromatic ions as design elements will be highlighted in the context of Brønsted base catalysis. Chiral cyclopropenimine bases provide a unique scaffold for tunable catalyst properties and exhibit aromaticity-enhanced reactivity for the synthesis of unnatural amino acids. Second, mechanistic studies in copper-catalyzed processes that enabled targeted reaction design will be presented. These efforts have led to a dramatically improved enantioselective hydroamination protocol and new methods for the preparation of chiral ketones from olefins and carboxylic acids.About the Speaker: Jeffrey Bandar was born in Saint Cloud, Minnesota and received his B.A. from Saint John’s University in Collegeville, MN in 2009. That year he began graduate studies with Tristan H. Lambert at Columbia University, where his research focused on the use of aromatic ions as design elements in catalysts, reactions and polymeric materials. Upon receiving his Ph.D. in 2014, Bandar began postdoctoral studies with Stephen L. Buchwald at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At MIT, he is currently studying the use of copper catalysts for the enantioselective hydrofunctionalization of olefins. Bandar’s work has been supported by NSF, NDSEG and NIH fellowships, and has received recognitions such as the Roche Excellence in Chemistry Award and the Sigma Aldrich Graduate Student Innovation Award.