Kobayashi Research Group

    

 

 

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Welcome to Yoshihisa Kobayashi’s laboratory at the University of California, San Diego, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

The tetrahedral nature of carbon has made it an ideal building block, allowing nature to construct a seemingly infinite array of molecules for an endless number of uses. It is these uses to which we assail ourselves, plumbing the depths of the biological world to not only find ways to improve health, but also, perhaps, to gain a better understanding of our place in it.

Unfortunately, some of the compounds we come across are in limited supply, constrained by the biological environments in which they are found. In these instances, total synthesis plays an important role in creating their availability for further investigation, and also serving as a way to ascertain absolute structural configuration.

The saying "necessity is the mother of invention" could never be more true when applied to the discoveries that total syntheses bring to the chemical world. Such complex and seemingly insurmountable targets challenge the synthetic chemist to devise routes that oftentimes generate novel synthetic methodologies and reagents whose utility can revolutionize the way we build these carbogens.

Our primary area of research centers on the stereocontrolled synthesis of architecturally complex natural products having significant bioregulatory properties. Also, new routes to b-amino acids and 2,3,4-trisubstituted quinolines are also being investigated.

 

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Office:
Pacific Hall 5100C
Phone/Fax: 858-822-5870
E-mail: ykoba at chem.ucsd.edu

Laboratory:
Pacific Hall 5121-5126
Phone: 858-822-2193 (5121-5123) & 822-4329 (5124-5126)

Mailing address:
9500 Gilman Dr.
Mail Code 0343
La Jolla, CA 92093-0343

This site is maintained by Stephen Born. Last updated 5-16-07