Keith Woerpel
New York University, NY·Chemistry
Many medicines come from natural compounds or are inspired by them, but making these molecules in the lab, with the right three-dimensional shape, often requires new chemical reactions. This project develops such reactions for two kinds of structures.
- Fields
Chemistry
Pharmacology
Biochemistry
- Topics
organic synthesis
synthetic methodology
cyclic peroxides
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2028
What they work on
- Test whether triggering ferroptosis, an iron-dependent form of cell death, is a general property of cyclic peroxides, and study how FINO2, a peroxide the lab developed, starts cell death, in collaboration with Brent Stockwell.
- Improve the potency and metabolic stability of the ferroptosis-inducing cyclic peroxide FINO2 as a potential anticancer compound.
- Develop new synthetic methods for the cyclic peroxide ring found in many natural products, and investigate how to make aromatic peroxides, whose synthesis and reactivity have not been addressed.
- Identify what controls the stability, reactivity and stereoselectivity of oxocarbenium ions, charged intermediates in acetal and sugar reactions, using systematic model systems, including the effect of carboxyl groups in sialic acids and remote neighboring-group participation.
More about the research
The first is cyclic peroxides, ring-shaped molecules with a reactive oxygen-oxygen bond. These natural products have shown activity that suggests uses against malaria, cancer, and viral and bacterial infections. The second is reactions of acetals, a common linkage in sugars and carbohydrates. These reactions pass through short-lived charged intermediates that are central to carbohydrate chemistry, including enzyme reactions.
Why it matters
New routes to cyclic peroxides could provide drug candidates that kill cells through unusual pathways, such as ferroptosis, and may lead to new anticancer agents and treatments for other diseases. Better understanding of sugar-reaction intermediates could help medicinal chemists build biologically active compounds with more control over 3D shape, and may suggest new ways to design enzyme inhibitors.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
David Sarlah
Rice University, TX·Chemistry
Develop a stereoselective olefination, a double-bond-forming reaction that controls 3D shape, to efficiently build the strained [5.3.2] bicyclic ring system of the cripowellin alkaloids.
Myles Smith
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, TX·Chemistry
Synthesize quassinoids, anticancer terpenoids, using direction-switchable oxidative coupling of simple bisphenols, so that oxygen already on the aromatic rings encodes much of the target's oxidation pattern.
Mary Watson
University of Delaware, DE·Chemistry
Develop enantioselective copper-catalyzed additions of alkynes to cyclic oxocarbenium and iminium ions, positively charged ring intermediates, to make oxygen and nitrogen heterocycles with tri- and tetrasubstituted stereocenters next to the heteroatom.
The school
New York University: 72 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 540 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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