Strategies and Tactics in Organic Synthesis

Professor Michael Harmata graduated from the University of Illinois-Chicago with honors and highest distinction in chemistry.In 1980, he began graduate studies in chemistry at the University of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana where he was awarded a University Teaching Fellowship. He worked with Professor Scott E. Denmark on the invention of the carbanion-accelerated Claisen rearrangement. In his second year of study, he was awarded an Eastman Kodak Research Fellowship.Upon graduation in 1985, he was awarded an NIH postdoctoral fellowship which he used to study with Professor Paul A. Wender at Stanford University, where he worked on the synthesis of the neocarzinostatin chromophore.In 1986, Prof. Harmata began his independent career at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He became an Associate Professor in 1992 and a full professor in 1998. In 2000, he was named the Norman Rabjohn Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in recognition of his achievements in research and teaching. In 1998, he received a research fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and stayed for a year at the University of Göttingen where he was affiliated with the groups of Professors Reinhard Brückner and Lutz. F. Tietze. In 2000, he served as chair of the Gordon conference on Organic Reactions and Processes. In 2010, he was named the first Justus Liebig Professor of Chemistry at the Justus Liebig Üniversität in Giessen, Germany. In 2011, he was a JSPS fellow. He has been a visiting professor in Giessen and Strasbourg and has delivered over 180 invited lectures in the United States and Europe. He is a member of the American Chemical Society, Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, International Society of Heterocyclic Chemistry, and the Alexander von Humboldt Association of America.

• 1. Amaryllidaceae isocarbostyril alkaloids2. Enzymatic dihydroxylation of aromatic compounds: Nature’s unique reaction and its impact on the synthesis of natural products3. Intermolecular oxidopyrylium [5+2] cycloaddition chemistry and its application toward the synthesis and study of highly oxygenated troponoids4. Aryne-mediated construction of fluorene skeletons and its applications to total synthesis of selaginpulvilins5. Cycloisomerizations across three states: the total synthesis of gelsenicine6. Tetrapetalones ruminations, trials and tribulations7. The synthesis of herqulines B and C8. First total synthesis of the dimeric naphthoquinonopyranolactone natural product (-)-crisamicin A. how procrastination may be of help in binaphthyl synthesis9. Strategies and discoveries leading to the synthesis of trichoaurantianolide natural products10. 4-exo-dig cyclocarbopalladation, discovery and application in the synthesis of complex polycyclic molecules