Cascading Through Catalysis: From Total Synthesis to Sustainable Methods

Chemists continue to push the limits of catalysis, both in how much molecular complexity a single step can build and in how chemical synthesis can become more sustainable. In this talk, I will present my work with different catalytic systems in total synthesis and method development. I will first highlight how gold catalysis can forge multiple congested stereocenters, closing four rings in a single step in the total synthesis of (+)-aberrarone. Moving from total synthesis to method development, I will then present catalytic systems that share a common goal: making the synthesis of important motifs in organic chemistry more sustainable through the use of light and abundant elements. These include organophotoredox catalysis for the cyclopropanation of unactivated olefins, dual cobalt/photoredox catalysis for the synthesis of heterocycles, and perovskite quantum dots as highly efficient photocatalysts for C-H bromination. Toward more sustainable cross-coupling reactions, I will present my work on copper-catalyzed aminations of aryl chlorides, where mechanistic studies guided the design of new ligands. Lastly, I will briefly discuss how machine learning and large language models can be employed to predict the performance of new catalysts.

Speaker: Willi Amberg, UC Berkeley