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Faculty
Jin-Quan Yu
Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry
TSRI - 2007
Education
B.S., East China Normal University, 1987
Ph.D., Cambridge University, UK 1999
Junior Research Fellow, St John’s College, Cambridge University, 1999-2003
Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University, 2001-2002
Awards & Activities
Journal Award for Synlett & Synthesis 2006
Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award 2004
Royal Society University Research Fellowship 2003
Fellowship of St John's College, University of Cambridge (JRF) 1998
Sino-British Scholarship by British Council and Education Ministry of China 1994
President Award for Outstanding Students of Chinese Academy of Sciences 1990
Research Focus
Discovering new reactions for synthesis through C-H activation
We focus on the invention of catalytic carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bond forming reactions based on C-H activation. Target transformations are selected to enable 1) the use of simple and abundant starting materials, and 2) disconnections that drastically shorten the synthesis of a class of biologically active compounds. Currently, our research efforts are focused on developing new reactions using simple aliphatic acids and natural amino acids via activating the unactivated C-H bonds (pKa > 35), regioselectively and enantioselectively, to parallel enzymatic transformations.
We then apply these new reactions in organic synthesis. Efforts are directed towards achieving rapid access to various libraries of potential pharmaceutical leads that are not readily accessible through previous methods, for instance, converting natural amino acids into pharmaceutically useful heterocycles. In collaboration with other groups at Scripps, we are also engaged in natural product synthesis using our reactions as the key step.
Our research program provides plentiful opportunity for inventions in the area of organometallic chemistry and synthesis, and will make significant contributions to synthetic and medicinal chemistry.
Selected References
Giri, R.; Maugel, N. L.; Li, J. J.; Wang, D.-H.; Breazzano, S.P.; Saunders, L. B.; Yu, J.-Q. Palladium-catalyzed methylation and arylation of sp2 and sp3 C-H bonds in simple carboxylic acids J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2007, 129, 3510-3511.
Chen, X.; Goodhue, C. E.; Yu, J.-Q. Palladium-catalyzed alkylation of sp2 and sp3 C-H bonds with methylboroxine and boronic acids: two distinct C-H activation pathways J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006, 128, 12634-12635.
Chen, X.; Hao, X. S.; Goodhue, C. E.; Yu, J.-Q. Cu(II)-catalyzed functionalizations of aryl C-H bonds using O2 as an oxidant J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006, 128, 6790-6791.
Giri, R.; Chen, X.; Yu, J.-Q. Palladium-catalyzed asymmetric iodination of unactivated C-H bonds under mild conditions Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2005, 44, 2112-2115.
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