Catalyzing Organic Synthesis

Join Professor John Hartwig, Henry Rapoport Chair in Organic Chemistry, University of California Berkeley for The Inaugural Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson Annual Lecture.
From Prozac to perfume, sustainable plastics to solar energy, catalysis enables our current standard of living and controls our potential to progress sustainably. The reduced emissions of modern cars, the abundance of fresh food at our stores, the beginnings of green energy, and the new pharmaceuticals we use to treat disease are made possible by chemical reactions controlled by catalysts.

Research in my group has sought to design catalysts that can introduce and manipulate functional groups in both small and large organic molecules. These reactions encompass novel coupling processes to facilitate the synthesis of medicinally important molecules, reactions that enable the introduction of fluorine and new fluoroalkyl substituents, and reactions that enable the introduction of functional groups into positions of molecules inaccessible by classical organic reactions.