Professor
Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Prounouns: He|Him|His
Our group uses synthetic organic chemistry to build molecules designed to perform specific chemical and biological tasks. Current projects fall in three categories: optimizing compounds for enhanced pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic attributes, probe compound development for elucidating function and regulation, and syntheses of structurally complex natural products that produce desirable phenotypes. All of these molecule building efforts have the conjoined goal of advancing new ideas in synthetic organic chemistry. In addition, through synthesis the creation of new chemical matter arises providing a competitive edge in our projects’ translational potential
Education: B.A. Chemistry (1997) Reed College; Ph.D. Chemistry (2003) Harvard University; Postdoctoral Studies in Molecular Pharmacology (2003-2007) Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Awards and Honors: Institute Fellowship, California Institute of Technology (1997-1998); Upjohn-Pharmacia Fellow (1998); Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (2005-2007); College of Natural Science Teaching Excellence Award (2010); The University of Texas System Reagents’ Outstanding Teaching Award (2010); College of Natural Sciences Outreach Excellence Award (2011); National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2012-2017)
Leadership Experience: Division Head of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, UC San Diego 7/2019-7/2022; Director of Californian Shaman, 5/2016-present; Co-Director UC San Diego Center for Compound Resources 1/2015-present; Director of Texas Shamans, 2008-2013
- Pharmaceutical Chemistry I – Advanced Organic Chemistry (SPPS 221)
- Organic Chemistry II (CHEM 40B)
- Developed efficient synthetic routes to structurally complex natural products enabling in depth studies into the compounds’ mechanism and translational potential
- Created a new synthetic method for the hydroxylation of arenes
- Advanced the understanding of the chemistry and biology of newly identified endogenous lipids
- C. Yuan et al. (2013). Metal-Free Aromatic C-H Oxidation Through a Reverse Rebound Mechanism. Nature 499:192-196
- T. C. Johnson et al (2016). Synthesis of Eupalinilide E a Promoter of Human Hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cell Expansion. Journal of the American Chemical Society 138, 6068-6073.
- D. Tan et al (2019) Discovery of FAHFA-Containing Triacylglycerols and Their Metabolic Regulation Journal of the American Chemical Society 141, 8798-8806
- M. P. Christy et al (2020) Total Synthesis of Micrococcin P1 Through Scalable Thiazole Forming Reactions of Cysteine Derivatives and Nitriles. Organic Letters 22, 2365-2370
- P. Rucha et al (2022) ATGL is a Biosynthetic Enzyme for Fatty Acid Esters of Hydroxy Fatty Acids. Nature 606, 968-975.
- Design and synthesis of compounds predicted to have improved pharmacokinetic /pharmacodynamic properties
- Development of synthetic routes to small molecules generating gram to decagram quantities
- Synthesis of probe compounds for imaging, the determination of mechanism of action, and assessment of metabolism