Stefan France

Professor

Education

B.S. Chemistry, Duke University, 2000; M.A. Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, 2003; Ph.D. Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, 2005

Research

Method Development. Our group is interested in the design of efficient methodologies to accomplish the formation of carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bonds with the intent to apply the methodology toward the synthesis of complex natural and unnatural targets.

Natural Product Synthesis. Approaches to natural products not only inspire the development of new synthetic strategies, but often unveil unexpected and often interesting reactivity. Targets are chosen for their interesting biological activity along with their sheer complexity. We are interested in exploring both modular and convergent approaches to complex targets that enable facile derivatization for the development of combinatorial libraries.

Medicinal Chemistry. Medicinal or pharmaceutical chemistry lies at the intersection of chemistry and pharmacy. Our group is interested in the design, synthesis and development of pharmaceutical drugs, or other chemical entities suitable for therapeutic use. We are further interested in the study of their biological properties and their quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSAR). Given that medicinal chemistry is a highly interdisciplinary science, we aim to establish several collaborations with biologists, biochemists, and computational chemists to facilitate the design and development process. In particular, we aim to develop therapeutics toward the treatment of various forms of cancer, HIV, diabetes, and neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

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