Research in organic chemistry at UNC Chapel Hill covers a broad range of subjects from natural products synthesis to the study of organic free-radicals with time-resolved EPR spectroscopy. Research is often interdisciplinary and involves science at the frontiers of polymer chemistry, inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, materials science and bioorganic chemistry. With nine faculty members formally in the organic division and a number of faculty members from other divisions whose research involves organic chemistry, graduate students find they have a wide range of choices for their doctoral research.
Individual investigators are engaged in, among other things, the following general research areas:
Alexanian
Synthesis and Organometallic Catalysis
Brookhart
Mechanisms of Metal-Catalyzed Reactions
Crimmins
Total Synthesis of Biologically Active Natural Products
DeSimone
Drug Delivery, Nanomedicine, PRINT
Forbes
Spin Chemistry, Electron Donor-Acceptor Chemistry
Gagné
Transition Metal Catalysis, Dynamic Combinatorial Chemistry
Johnson
Synthetic Methods, Catalysis, Total Synthesis
Lawrence
Drug Development, Enzyme Inhibitors, Light-Activated Agents
Waters
Bioorganic Chemistry, Molecular Recognition
You
Organic Photovoltaics, Organic Spintronics
Formal [4 + 2] Cycloaddition of Donor−Acceptor Cyclobutanes and Aldehydes: Stereoselective Access to Substituted Tetrahydropyrans. Andrew T. Parsons and Jeffrey S. Johnson. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2009, 131 (40), pp 14202–14203.
Controlling Peptide Folding with Repulsive Interactions between Phosphorylated Amino Acids and Tryptophan. Alexander J. Riemen and Marcey L. Waters. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2009, 131 (39), pp 14081–14087.
Acquisition of a Potent and Selective TC-PTP Inhibitor via a Stepwise Fluorophore-Tagged Combinatorial Synthesis and Screening Strategy. Sheng Zhang, Lan Chen, Yong Luo, Andrea Gunawan, David S. Lawrence and Zhong-Yin Zhang. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2009, 131 (36), pp 13072–13079.
Asymmetric Synthesis of (+)-Polyanthellin A. Matthew J. Campbell and Jeffrey S. Johnson. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2009, 131 (30), pp 10370–10371.
Radical Reactions with Double Memory of Chirality (2MOC) for the Enantiospecific Synthesis of Adjacent Stereogenic Quaternary Centers in Solution: Cleavage and Bonding Faster than Radical Rotation. Marino J. E. Resendiz, Farnosh Family, Kerrian Fuller, Luis M. Campos, Saeed I. Khan, Natalia V. Lebedeva, Malcolm D. E. Forbes and Miguel A. Garcia-Garibay. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2009, 131 (24), pp 8425–8433.
Kinetics and mechanism of thermal decomposition of kynurenines and biomolecular conjugates: Ramifications for the modification of mammalian eye lens proteins. Lyudmila V. Kopylova, Olga A. Snytnikova, Elena I. Chernyak, Sergey V. Morozov, Malcolm D. E. Forbes, and Yuri P. Tsentalovich. Org. Biomol. Chem., 2009, 7, 2958-2966.
Illuminating the Chemistry of Life: Design, Synthesis, and Applications of . Lee, HM; Larson, DR; Lawrence, DS. ACS Chem. Biol., 2009, 4 (6), pp 409–427.
Time-Resolved EPR Investigation of Potential Model Systems for Acrylate Polymer Main Chain Radicals Based on Esters of Kemp's Tri-Acid. Natalia V. Lebedeva, Elena V. Gorelik, Damaris Magnus-Aryitey, Terence E. Hill and Malcolm D. E. Forbes. J. Phys. Chem. B, 2009, 113 (19), pp 6623–6629.
Diastereoselective Synthesis of Pentasubstituted Γ-Butyrolactones from Silyl Glyoxylates and Ketones through a Double Reformatsky Reaction. Stephen N. Greszler, Jeffrey S. Johnson. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Volume 48, Issue 20, Pages 3689-3691.
Visual Snapshots of Intracellular Kinase Activity at the Onset of Mitosis. Zhaohua Dai, Natalya G. Dulyaninova, Sanjai Kumar, Anne R. Bresnick, and David S. Lawrence. Chemistry & Biology; Volume 14, Issue 11, 26 November 2007, Pages 1254-1260.