A Passion for Organic Synthesis: New Nazarov Chemistry, Total Synthesis of Highly Unsaturated Pyrone Polyketides, and Synthetic Studies toward Haouamines

This book features an in-depth account on methodology development and total synthesis of three challenging families of natural products. The first part describes how we achieved the first catalytic asymmetric Nazarov reactions with high enantiomeric excess, along with the rational design of a novel Nazarov triflation reaction. The power of the new methodology is demonstrated by concise and convergent total syntheses of four diterpene derived taiwaniaquinoids. The second part depicts a modular and convergent approach to produce the highly unsaturated pyrone polyketides. Total syntheses of ten family members using this novel approach were presented, and insightful biosynthetic relations between certain members were discussed. The third part highlights our significant progress toward the asymmetric total synthesis of haouamines, a family of intriguing marine alkaloids, as well as the incorporation of enzymatic catalysis into our biomimetic synthetic effort. The extensive description and discussion about a broad spectrum of reactions in this book should provide inspiration and enlightenment for researchers currently working on similar synthetic targets or methodology development.