CRC 1333 Colloquium: Prof. Amir Hoveyda

Date/Time
06.02.2025
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Location
Lecture Hall 47.04
Pfaffenwaldring 47
70569 Stuttgart



We are very happy to welcome within the CRC 1333 Colloquium Series:

Prof. Amir Hoveyda

Thursday, February 06, 2025, 2:00-3:00 pm

Boston College, USA/ University of Strasbourg, France

Topic: “Catalytic Click Processes that Forge Functional Linkages”

Prof. Hoveyda´s Research Areas:

– Discovery, design and development of new catalysts for chemical synthesis that are easy to produce, stable to air and moisture and that can be recycled
– Introduction of efficient new chiral catalysts that can be used to synthesise important enantiomerically pure compounds for the production of biologically and medically active compounds
– Development of transformations (such as conjugate additions and olefin metathesis) that cannot be efficiently catalysed using existing methods
– Total synthesis of complex molecules (testing our catalysts)
– Investigation of the reaction mechanism (how do our catalysts work?)
– New approaches to the discovery of catalysts (combinatorial chemistry)

Abstract:
Click reactions that generate functional linkages are desirable but scarce, and among the less than a handful of catalytic options, none delivers a clippable connector. In this Lecture the development of copper(I)-catalyzed allene-ketone addition (CuAKA) will be presented. CuAKA, despite being promoted by Cu(I) complex, is mutually orthogonal to CuAAC (copper(I)-catalyzed azide–alkyne cycloaddition) and the more recently introduced CuPDF (copper(I)-catalyzed phenoxydiazaborinine formation). These click processes can be merged for rapid and diversifiable assembly of multifunctional entities. CuAKA-generated linkages can be ruptured in dilute aqueous H2O2, a reactive oxygen species (ROS), the higher concentration of which in a cell foreshadows diseases such as cancer and diabetes. CuAKA has been used for efficient linking of anti-cancer agent camptothecin to unprotected penetratin, a cell-penetrating peptide, with payload release occurring in a 68 μM aqueous solution of H2O2 at 37 °C.

The CRC cordially invites all who are interested to the lecture.