Organic Chemistry Seminar

     When controlled, aerobic oxidations can rapidly increase molecular complexity, often at the expense of creating water as the sole byproduct.  This lecture will detail our group's efforts to develop selective, aerobic transformations, and will describe our activities in aerobic copper catalysis, the total synthesis of polyphenol natural products, and the synthesis of paramagnetic metal-organic materials.  A unifying theme throughout will be our strategic use of molecular oxygen, whose favorable reduction to water provides a clean source of chemical energy that we use to drive synthesis.