The focus of our laboratory is chemical biology, and specifically includes organic synthesis and biochemistry. Independent study students who have worked in our lab in the past have performed syntheses of biologically active natural products incorporating structural modifications used to elucidate their mode of action. A publication from our lab includes the work of two undergraduate researchers:

Michael C. Pirrung, Yufa Liu, Liu Deng, Diana K. Halstead, Zhitao Li, John F. May, Michael Wedel, Darrell A. Austin, and Nicholas J. G. Webster, ”Methyl Scanning: Total Syntheses of Demethylasterriquinone B1 and Derivatives for Identification of Sites of Interaction with and Isolation of Its Receptors,” J. Am. Chem. Soc., 127, 4609 (2005).

Our laboratory is also an active practitioner of combinatorial chemistry, a powerful method for rapidly making large collections of novel compounds that can be tested for biological activity. At UCR, this tool is applied to chemical genetics, the use of small organic compounds to mimic the effects of gene knockouts.

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