Research

Our research interests lie in synthetic organic chemistry, and the contribution this science can make to the fields of medicine and natural products synthesis. We concentrate on developing new catalytic reactions and methodologies for synthetic organic chemistry and then employing our chemistry to make biologically important natural products. Our work is directly relevant to the pharmaceutical industry and the research group is supported by many multi-national companies including AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Lilly, Novartis and Pfizer.
Catalysis
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Total synthesis of natural products
The Donohoe group has made advances with many new reactions for the selective functionalisation of organic molecules and tested this methodology in the arena of total synthesis, completing short and efficient synthesis of complex natural products including pericosine B, sylvaticin, cis-sylvaticin, hygromycin, dehydromicrosclerodermin B, secosyrin 1, australite, cyclindricine B, lactacystin-β-lactone, deoxypukolide, muscopyridine, streptonigrin and the berberine alkaloids.
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