Araiosamines: The Long Journey From Vanuatu to La Jolla
Today our work on the total synthesis of the araiosamines is out in JACS. While the chemistry (success and unexpected failures) was detailed in the paper and…
Cross-Couple While the Iron is Hot
We are delighted to announce that our recent work on Fe-catalyzed cross-couplings of redox-active esters (RAEs) has recently been published in JACS! We’d like to share with you…
Maoecrystal V, or I how I learned to cope with my mediocrity
Greetings and salutations, ladies and gentlemen! Our total synthesis of maoecrystal V has been published in JACS recently. It is a fascinating molecule, in my opinion, with…
Tales from the Trenches: Pallambins
Our total synthesis of Pallambins C and D is out today in JACS. We have placed a summary of our failed approaches and strategies in the supporting information…
The B side of the Taxabaccatin Journey
When our latest success towards the two-phase synthesis of taxol was published in Angew this month, I experienced both joy and relief. From my first day in the…
Guest Post: A Philosophical Consideration of Total Synthesis
This post comes from outside the Baran lab. A very talented undergraduate (Wade Miller) from the University of Pennsylvania sent us his paper from an assignment in philosophy class…
Making C–C Bonds with the Simplicity of Making Amide Bonds
Despite all of the wonderful advances in organic synthesis, amide-bond formation is still the most widely used reaction among those making medicines. This truth has led some to…
C–H Oxidation Meets Electrochemistry
When we look back at some of our lab’s terpene syntheses using a “two-phase” approach, it becomes abundantly clear that one oxidation reaction is used more than…
Phorbol Synthesis
Today, our paper entitled “Nineteen-Step Total Synthesis of (+)-Phorbol” was published online in Nature. The chemistry is thoroughly described in the paper so here I will just…
Diversinate Update
Since our first report in 2011 on the trifluoromethylation of heterocycles, sulfinate chemistry has been demonstrated to be a useful tool for drug discovery. The lab extended this chemistry…