November 16, 2023 12:30 pm
November 16, 2023 2:00 pm
Searching for Selective Catalytic Reactions in Complex Molecular Environments
Scott Miller
Irénée du Pont Professor of Chemistry
Yale University
Scott Miller received his B.A. (1989), M.A. (1989), and Ph.D. (1994) from Harvard University, where he worked as a National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellow. Subsequently, he traveled to the California Institute of Technology where he was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Robert Grubbs until 1996. For the following decade, Professor Miller was a member of the faculty at Boston College, until joining the faculty at Yale University in 2006. In 2008, he was appointed as the Irénée duPont Professor of Chemistry. From 2009-2015, he served as the Chairperson of the Chemistry Department, and from 2015-2017 as the Divisional Director for Science.
This lecture will describe recent developments resulting from our efforts to develop catalysts for asymmetric reactions, in particular for the preparation of densely functionalized, stereochemically complex structures. Over time, our foci have been on enantioselectivity, siteselectivity and chemoselectivity. In much of our current work, we are studying issues of enantioselectivity as a prelude to the extrapolation of catalysis concepts to more complex molecular settings where multiple issues are presented in a singular substrate. Complex natural products, for example, will be presented as quintessentially complex scaffolds for catalytic modification. Mechanistic paradigms, and their associated ambiguities – especially in light of catalyst or substrate conformational dynamics – will figure strongly in the lecture. Moreover, our focus on peptide-based catalysts has facilitated analogies to enzymes. Finally, several interesting collaborations – often unanticipated by us –will be discussed.
The Charles H. and Margaret M. Witten Chemistry Seminar Fund began in 1998. The purpose of the fund is to bring renowned chemists to campus to meet and interact with students, both graduate and undergraduate.