Current Areas of Research
Electrophilic Late Metal Catalysts
We aim to discover late metal catalysts for the electrophilic activation of alkenes, allenes, and alkynes towards carbon nucleophiles. The long-term goal is to develop catalysts capable of mediating the enantioselective cation-olefin reaction, the key C-C bond forming reaction in terpene biosynthesis (steroids, etc).
New catalysts for the synthesis of C-Glycosides
These compounds are medicinally important because of their attenuated susceptibility to metabolic processing (compared to normal carbohydrates). The approach that has been successful thus far, is to develop Ni-catalysts for promoting the addition of alkyl- and aryl- zinc reagents to glycosyl-halides. This is a completely new project.
Dynamic Combinatorial Chemistry
This powerful method utilizes reversible bond formation to synthesize complex libraries of potential receptors. In the presence of an appropriate template, the best receptor for that template is amplified relative to the remaining components of the library. We have been inventing approaches to discovering enantioselective receptors using racemic libraries. This is also a new project.
Heterogeneous Catalysis in Porous Polymers
We have become expert at imbedding catalysts into porous organic polymers. One reason for doing this is that in poor solvents (e.g. fluorocarbon, or CO2, or water), organic compounds partition into the polymer phase and concentrate there. When the catalyst is in this phase, the effective concentration is high and reaction rates significantly increase. When different compounds partition differently, then catalysts see relative substrate concentrations that can significantly differ from bulk solution leading to unusual reaction selectivities.
The Gagné group is interested in synthesis, catalysis, and how molecular recognition can be used to find new approaches to solving difficult problems.
Students and postdocs come from a variety of backgrounds but primarily include organic and inorganic coworkers.
Our projects, generally speaking, straddle these areas, though some projects have a strong emphasis on synthesis and/or organometallic chemistry/catalysis.