Guthikonda Lectureship: Professor Guangbin Dong, University of Chicago
About the Seminar
Simple-Looking but Non-Obvious Transformations
Late-stage functionalization has become an increasingly important strategy for increasing structural diversity of analogues in drug discovery. However, the current late-stage functionalization tactics remain limited, mostly centered on C-H functionalization. In this talk, three simple-looking but non-obvious transformations will be discussed, which allow for unusual late-stage modifications of complex molecules. The first transformation promotes directed saturation of unactivated arenes, leading to site-selective conversion of a benzene ring into a cyclohexane ring in complex molecules. The second transformation enables simultaneous installation of two chemically different boryl groups side-by-side into common aryl triflates or chlorides, resulting in divergent regioselective difunctionalization. The third one represents an “atom swap” strategy, which replaces a carbonyl group with a heteroatom, such as sulfur or nitrogen. This method can efficiently introduce saturated heterocycles from readily available cyclic ketones, and the application includes rapid conversion of readily available steroids into the corresponding thia- and azasteroids.
About the Speaker
Guangbin Dong received his B.S. degree from Peking University in 2003 and completed his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from Stanford University with Professor Barry M. Trost in 2009. After two years of postdoctoral training with Professor Robert H. Grubbs at the California Institute of Technology, he joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin in 2011. In 2016, he moved to the University of Chicago as a Professor of Chemistry. His current research interests include transition-metal-catalyzed C-H and C-C bond activation, total synthesis of bioactive natural products, boron chemistry, and the development of new materials. Professor Dong has authored over 160 scientific publications and has received numerous scientific awards, including the Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award and the ACS Arthur C. Cope Scholar award.