Biologically-active natural products, which are often stereochemically and structurally complex, have a long and rich tradition of being attractive as targets of opportunity to inspire the invention and discovery of new chemistry. In the context of designing concise approaches to these naturally-occurring compounds, retrosynthetic analysis can be advantageously directed to reveal deficiencies in organic synthesis. Recognition of such problems then serves as a motivation to develop new methods to form carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bonds with high degrees of selectivity and to devise general strategies to assemble functionalized carbocyclic and heterocyclic frameworks.<br/><br/>The presentation will first focus on some highlights of our work in the area of natural products chemistry with an emphasis on the methodological and strategic contributions and how they were applied to the syntheses of a representative collection of structurally diverse natural products. One novel solution to a problem we encountered in alkaloid synthesis was also applied to the design and development of a general platform for the rapid preparation of an array of substituted heterocycles for biological screening. The story of how members of one family of such heterocycles emerged as promising leads to address unmet medical needs in the neuroscience area will be presented as will the use of several of these compounds to study a new pathway relevant to neurodegenerative diseases and neurological disorders.

<b>Award Address </b>(Ernest Guenther Award in the Chemistry of Natural Products sponsored by Givaudan Flavors Corporation). Journey from natural products to unmet medical needs in neuroscience

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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Award Address (Ernest Guenther Award in the Chemistry of Natural Products sponsored by Givaudan Flavors Corporation). Journey from natural products to unmet medical needs in neuroscience