Enantioselective Ammonium Enolate Based Michael-Henry and Michael-Henry-Aldol Cascade Reactions: Development, Mechanistic Insight, and Applications for Morphine Family Analgesics

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Thomas Nugent
• Subject Area: Organic Molecular Chemistry - Synthesis and Characterisation
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 509064606

Given the significance of medicine to society, the efficient synthesis of molecules of medicinal relevance has always been a vital goal within academic granting agencies. To reach that goal, synthetic design principles are coupled with insightful strategy, and their execution exposes students to the learning outcomes required to face the next generation of more advanced challenges. Without these types of projects, some pharmaceutical drugs would simply not be discovered or discovered but never brought to market for the treatment of disease. In this context, the study of morphine analogs continues unabated to this day and has motivated us to contribute a highly step-efficient new synthetic strategy for the synthesis of morphine. A successful project outcome would allow the findings to be applied to the synthesis of previously inaccessible morphine analogs for medicinal chemistry exploration as drug candidates.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants