Lecture of the Doctoral Program in Organic Chemistry

Biomimetic Spirocyclizations for the Synthesis of Indole Alkaloids

By Prof. Romano V.A. Orru, Aachen-Maastricht Institute for Biobased Materials (AMIBM) (Webpage)

Date and Venue: October, 3rd, 2024 at 12:00; Aula Magna of the Faculty of Pharmacy (UB)

ABSTRACT: In the past 10 years we worked on a number of Tandem- and Multi Component Reaction strategies that involve a spirocyclization process. Especially, the spirocyclizations leading to spiroindelenine scaffolds proved very rewarding. Our one-pot spirocyclizations can be considered a bio-mimetic approach to synthesize indole alkaloid natural products and their derivatives in a concise, atom- and step efficient manner. This opens opportunities for total synthesis, but also for medicinal chemistry studies of these privileged heterocyclic molecules. In this presentation, I will highlight our work in this area over the years in detail discussing both scope and limitations of the methodology, fundamental mechanistic aspects and synthetic its applications.