Undergraduate Research
GlaxoSmithKline Oncology R&D (Collegeville, PA, 2014)
At GSK, I worked in Medicinal Chemistry, synthesizing anticancer candidate compounds. I completed syntheses of 11 compounds over 5 months and I brought forward batches of material for the team.
Sarpong Group (UC Berkeley, 2012 - 2013)
In the Sarpong Group I worked on an enantioselective synthesis of the enantiomer of the natural product complanadine A, which is known to stimulate neurite outgrowth in vitro. This synthesis would have helped assign the absolute configuration of complanadine A, which was disputed at the time. Enantiomers are also helpful tools for discerning whether a drug-target interaction is specific or nonspecific. In the end, I completed a formal synthesis of the enantiomer, i.e., I synthesized a starting material that is known to be used to synthesize the final product.
Reisman Group (Caltech, 2013)
In the Reisman Group, I synthesized bisoxazoline (BOX) ligands for nickel-catalyzed reductive asymmetric cross-coupling reactions. I completed a study of how the bite angle of the BOX ligand affects yield and enantioselectivity in three different reductive cross-coupling reactions.