Thesis Defense: Vaani Gupta

Please join Yale Chemistry for a thesis seminar with Vaani Gupta, Herzon Lab.

Title: Total Syntheses of Antiproliferative Haloimadazole and Tetraterpenoid Natural Products

Summary: Secondary metabolic pathways in microbes and plants produce a wide range of natural products that help organisms survive and interact with their environments. Many of these metabolites can display anticancer or antibacterial activity, making them valuable leads for drug discovery. Because isolation from natural sources and semisynthetic modification are often challenging, developing reliable synthetic routes is crucial for enabling detailed studies of their biological targets and activity.

The first part of this seminar will focus on adaptation of a previously developed synthetic route to Securiflustra securifrons alkaloids to synthesize additional brominated isolates (securine B, securamine B and securamine C). I will then discuss development of a heterodimerization strategy to accomplish the first total synthesis of (–)-gukulenin A, and further evaluation of its structure–function relationships through fully synthetic derivatives.