I. Chemo-enzymatic Preparation of natural products
- Penems Production: Penem is a class of small molecules with antibacterial activities. By applying organic synthesis and enzymatic transformations, we are interested in producing a penem library with broad array of modifications.
- Isocyanide and Oxirane Installation: Isocyanides, aka. Isonitriles, and oxiranes are found in various natural products and they are useful functional groups in organic synthesis. By identifying and understanding the reaction logics of enzymes involving in these transformations, we aim to expand the substrate flexibility as well as enzymes efficiency.
II. Mechanistic Investigation of Enzyme-Catalyzed Transformations
- Oxygen Addition Found in Natural Products Biosynthesis: Oxirane functionality has been found in variety of natural products. Among various approaches utilized in Nature, inserting an electrophilic oxygen atom onto an olefinic moiety approach has been extensively used. We are interested in understanding chemical logic of this reaction.
- CSP2-CSP2 Bond Construction via Consecutive Dehydrogenation or Decarboxylation Approach: C-C bond formation is a central topic in not only in organic synthesis but also bioorganic chemistry. In Nature, CSP2-CSP2 bond formation can be a sequence transformation involving two consecutive C-H activation steps or C-H activation and follows by decarboxylation. We are currently investigating the biological logic governs these reactions.
