Special Seminar

Prof. Zarko Boskovic, University of Kansas presents "Photochemical Synthesis of Complex Organic Molecules"

Abstract: In this talk, I will provide several examples of photochemical reactions we developed to
access a variety of structurally novel compounds, primarily saturated heterocycles with several
stereocenters. Specifically, I will discuss our studies in the area of pyrrolinium photochemistry, the
development of a Norrish-Yang reaction variant for accessing azetidines, the photochemical
decarbonylation of small heterocycles which give ylides (which react with pi systems), photochemical
access to cyclopropane-fused lactones, and reactivity of twisted intramolecular charge-transfer state.
The discussion will feature quantitative measurements and models that aided and guided the
development of these photochemical reactions

Biography: Prof. Boskovic received his undergraduate degree from the University of Nish, Serbia, where he published on
mathematical chemistry with Prof. Ivan Gutman, and on the isolation and analysis of secondary metabolites with Prof. Gordana Stojanovic. He conducted his PhD studies at UC Santa Barbara with Prof. Bruce Lipshutz studying copper hydride-initiated reactions, catalysis, and stereoselective synthetic organic methods. Prof. Boskovic then conducted postdoctoral research with Prof. Stuart Schreiber at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard working on delineating molecular mechanism of action of several screening hits, and on the design of new chemistry for diverse collections of complex small molecules. He joined the faculty of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Kansas in 2018