NATURAL PRODUCTS

Nature's small molecule toolkit for modulating biology


The Phillips group works in the general area of natural products chemistry. Much of our research to date has been defined by questions relating to the development of new methods and strategies for the synthesis of natural products, information on which can be found on the RESEARCH menu above.

As we move forward, we recognize that in many cases natural products have a seemingly unique ability to modulate complex biology. The challenge for us, as synthetic chemists, is to produce molecules with the ability to perform the same tasks in a 'de novo' fashion rather than relying on serendipitous discoveries from natural products chemistry. With a foundation of synthetic chemistry we hope to reduce what might be possible with small molecules to what is achievable with small molecules in the context of questions of importance on the biology-medicine continuum. Much of our future research program will be defined by this broad goal, and we are challenging ourselves to look beyond specific questions raised by natural products in order to:

1. develop small molecules that can access the diverse biology that nature modulates with small peptides.
2. identify natural products that affect 'undruggable' targets such as protein-protein interactions and, with the information gleaned from this, develop small molecules to tackle these challenges.
3. identify small molecules that affect the regulation of genes that produce secondary metabolites.

Highlights
  • June, 2009. Our review of the chemistry and biology of the halichondrins and E7389 has been published in Chemical Reviews. More here.
  • May, 2009. Baran and Young highlight a key feature of our 2006 cyanthiwigin synthesis: the minimalist approach to protecting groups as a part of a Nature Chemistry review on the opportunity to reprogram the way we think about 'needing' protecting groups. Read the full review here.
  • April, 2009. Chris Nasveschuk (Ph. D.with Tom Rovis @ CSU) has accepted a job with Constellation Pharma in Cambridge, MA. Congratulations to Chris!
  • April, 2009. Our norhalichondrin synthesis is the most downloaded paper from Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. in March. Nice news for Kate, Jim, and Hajime.
  • April, 2009. Jim Henderson's synthesis of aburatubolactam A (Angew. Chem. 2008, read the paper here) was featured as the Synfact of the Month by Thieme. More here.
  • April, 2009. Jamie McCabe (Ph. D. with Kay Brummond @ Pitt) has moved on to start the next phase of her career at Schering-Plough. Stay tuned for papers describing her postdoctoral work.
  • February, 2009. Our total synthesis of norhalichondrin B has appeared in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Read the paper here. 
Copyright 2009 A. J. Phillips. All Rights Reserved.