Organic chemistry colloquium
Caltech expert to present lecture in Student Invited Organic Colloquium
10:04 a.m., Nov. 5, 2014--Sarah E. Reisman, a professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), will be the guest presenter in the University of Delaware’s Student Invited Organic Colloquium on Friday, Nov. 14, beginning at 4 p.m. in 101 Brown Laboratory.
Reisman will present a lecture titled “From Alkaloids to Terpenoids: Strategies and Tactics for the Synthesis of Polycyclic Natural Products.” The following is a submitted summary of her talk:
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“The chemical synthesis of natural products provides an exciting platform from which to conduct fundamental research in chemistry and biology. Our laboratory has ongoing research programs targeting the chemical syntheses of several natural products, including members of the epidithiodiketopiperazines, the ent-kauranoids, and the acutumine alkaloids. The densely packed arrays of heteroatoms and stereogenic centers that constitute these polycyclic targets challenge the limits of current technology and inspire the development of new synthetic strategies and tactics. This seminar will describe our latest progress in both our methodological and target-directed synthesis endeavors.”
Reisman was born and raised in Bar Harbor, Maine. She attended Connecticut College, where she developed a passion for organic synthesis working in the laboratory of professor Timo Ovaska and graduated with honors in 2001. In the fall of that year, she enrolled in graduate studies at Yale University and joined the research group of professor John Wood.
She earned her doctorate in chemistry in 2006; her thesis detailed the total synthesis of the natural product welwitindolinone A isonitrile.
For her postdoctoral work, she pursued studies in asymmetric catalysis as a National Institutes of Health fellow, working with professor Eric Jacobsen at Harvard University.