Scott E. Denmark

The research in my group is primarily involved with the invention of new synthetic reactions, on the origin of stereocontrol in fundamental carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bond forming reactions, and in the application of these developments to the synthesis of complex molecular structures. A continuing theme of the work in these laboratories is the relationship between structure, reactivity and stereoselectivity in a variety of organo-element systems, particularly, silicon, phosphorus, tin, sulfur and lithium containing compounds. In recent years this interest has focused on palladium catalyzed cross-coupling reactions with organofunctional silicon compounds, asymmetric catalysis of carbonyl and olefin addition reactions and chiral Lewis base activation of Lewis acids. In addition my research program encompasses the development and application of tandem heterodiene cycloadditions for the synthesis of complex natural (alkaloids) and unnatural (fenestranes) nitrogen containing compounds. In recent years the tandem cycloaddition has been employed as a discovery engine for the investigation of structure/selectivity-reactivity relationships in asymmetric phase transfer catalysis with chiral quaternary ammonium ions. In recent years, my group has investigated theuse of chemoinformatics and machine learning to identify and optimize catalystsfor a variety of organic and organometallic reactions.

My group maintains a long-standing interest in catalytic enantioselective reactions with organozinc and other organometallic reagents.