23rd Annual Stauffer Lectureship (Day 1 of 2): Professor Scott Denmark

23rd Annual Stauffer Lectureship (Day 1 of 2): Professor Scott Denmark
Date
Tue February 13th 2018, 4:30 - 5:30pm
Location
Sapp Center Lecture Hall

23rd Annual Stauffer Lectureship (Day 1 of 2): Professor Scott Denmark (Host: Carolyn Bertozzi)

"Transmetalation in the Suzuki-Miyaura Cross-Coupling Reaction: Mechanistic Insights and Preparative Implications"

About the Seminar

The Suzuki-Miyaura reaction is by far the most commonly practiced and most powerful of the palladium catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. This reaction owes its widespread utility to the vast number of commercially available boronic acids and boronate derivatives as well as the mildness of the reaction conditions and the vast array of ligands that have allowed the coupling of unreactive and challenging substrates. Nevertheless, the molecular details of the critical transmetalation step have 
remained obscure because of the extreme reactivity of the hypothetical pretransmetalation
intermediate containing the key B–O–Pd linkage. Through the combination of spectroscopic analysis, independent synthesis, and kinetic measurements, we have unambiguously identified and characterized the elusive, pretransmetalation species that undergo the Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reaction from various boron derivatives.

About the Speaker

Scott E. Denmark was born in New York on 17 June 1953.  He obtained an S. B. degree from M.I.T. in 1975 and his graduate studies were carried out at the ETH-Zürich under the direction of Professor Albert Eschenmoser, culminating in a D. Sc. Tech degree in 1980. That same year he began his career as assistant professor at the University of Illinois.  He was promoted to associate professor in 1986, full professor in 1987 and then in 1991 named the Reynold C. Fuson Professor of Chemistry.

Professor Denmark is primarily interested in the invention of new synthetic reactions and elucidating the origins of stereocontrol in novel, asymmetric reactions. The current emphasis in his laboratories focuses on the relationship between structure, reactivity and stereoselectivity in a variety of organoelement processes.  He has pioneered the concept of chiral Lewis base activation of Lewis acids for catalysis in main group synthetic organic chemistry.  His group has also developed palladium-catalyzed cross-couplings with organofunctional silicon compounds.  In addition his research program encompasses the development and application of tandem heterodiene cycloadditions for the synthesis of complex natural (alkaloids) and unnatural (fenestranes, phase transfer catalysts) nitrogen containing compounds. In recent years, his group has investigated the use of chemoinformatics to identify and optimize catalysts for a variety of organic and organometallic reactions.

Professor Denmark has won a number of honors for both research and teaching.  These include: A. P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, A. C. Cope Scholar Award (ACS), Alexander Von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award, Pedler Lecture and Medal (RSC), the ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, the Yamada-Koga Prize, the Prelog Medal (ETH-Zürich), the H. C. Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods (ACS), Robert Robinson Lecture and Medal (RSC), the ISHC Senior Award in Heterocyclic Chemistry, Paul Karrer Lectureship (Uni Zürich), the Frederic Stanley Kipping Award for Research in Silicon Chemistry (ACS), and the Harry and Carol Mosher Award (Santa Clara Section, ACS). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the American Chemical Society and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received numerous honorary lectureships and visiting professorships and has served on many editorial advisory boards. He edited Volume 85 of Organic Syntheses, was Editor of Volumes 22-25 of Topics in Stereochemistry and was a founding Associate Editor of Organic Letters (1999-2004). After serving on the editorial board from 1994-2003, he became Editor in Chief and President of Organic Reactions, Inc. in 2008.