Professor Andrew G. Myers, Amory Houghton Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University

Abstract: My research focuses on the use of component based convergent chemical synthesis for the discovery and manufacture of new antibiotics effective against multi-drug resistant modern bacterial pathogens.  Many antibiotics approved for the treatment of human infectious diseases are natural products or are derived from them.  The chemical structures, and physical properties, of these medicines are unlike those of molecules within the broader pharmacopeia, with complex molecular scaffolds that often contain high densities of stereogenic carbon atoms, many bearing polar functional groups. As we will demonstrate in this lecture, antibiotics discovery using synthetic organic chemistry has repeatedly required the development of new [sp3-sp3] carbon-carbon bond forming reactions that can be quite specific to a given target scaffold and must meet the challenging requirements of high stereochemical control and a tolerance for polar functional groups.  These points will be illustrated with discoveries of potent new medicines or antibiotic candidates of the tetracycline, macrolide, and lincosamideclasses.