Organic synthesis and Catalysis

Graduate students will learn a combination of method development, synthesis, asymmetric catalysis, and where relevant, organometallic chemistry, to understand and solve the problems they are interested in.

Molecular editing 

The Li group is focused on designing new strategies to modify the carbon framework of natural products with the goal of achieving atom-swapping reactions. In a reaction sequence involving heteroatom insertion, carbon extrusion, and carbon-heteroatom bond formation, we are developing transition-metal catalyzed process to address challenges in the carbon extrusion step.

Asymmetric catalysis

The development of catalytic enantioselective methods in the Li group is centered on accessing new planar chiral macrocycles that do not possess elements of point chirality. Despite common occurrences in natural products, planar chirality is currently not a design element incorporated into small molecules to modulate their biological activity. Our group strives to discover modes of asymmetric induction to access enantioenriched planar chiral molecules, and to elucidate the structural elements required to prevent racemization of these molecules.

Group news

• Apr 2024 - Liang-Yu is awarded the David N. and Minnie I. Wall Graduate Fellowship. Well-deserved!
• Apr 2024 - Udayan receives the Edward V. Sayre Chemistry Scholarship. Congratulations!
• Apr 2024 - Shengkai becomes a member of ISU's Chapter of Sigma Xi!
• July 2023 - Liang-Yu's work on skeletal editing by decarboxylation is online.
• May 2023 - Shengkai's and Liang-Yu's paper on the catalytic enantioselective synthesis of planar chiral metacyclophanes is published!
• Mar 2023 - Our work on atom-swapping reactions as part of recent developments in skeletal editing is highlighted in Chemistry World.
• Nov 2022 - We say goodbye to Quang and wish him all the best for the future.
• Sep 2022 - Tian's paper on Ni(cod)(DQ)-catalyzed C-N coupling is online!
• Aug 2022 - We say goodbye to Ne and wish him all the best at MIT.
• Jul 2022 - Our group's projects on atom swapping have received NIH funding under the MIRA ESI program!
• Feb 2022 - Our C-to-O atom swapping reaction sequence is highlighted in Chemistry World.
• Jan 2022 - Our first paper on atom swapping is published!