Yoshito Kishi
Yoshito Kishi was born 13 April 1937 in Nagoya, Japan and is the Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University. He is known for his contributions to the sciences of organic synthesis and total synthesis.
He attended Nagoya University where he obtained both his BS and PhD degrees before he started as postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University where he worked with Robert Burns Woodward.From 1966 through 1974, he was a professor of chemistry at Nagoya University.Since 1974, Kishi has been a professor of chemistry at Harvard University.
His first lecture will be presented on Thursday March 16th at 3:30 pm, 2017
With use of the marine natural product palytoxin as an example, we shall review the stereochemistry assignment by organic synthesis. We then discuss how this work has evolved to the universal NMR database approach, which allows assignment of the relative and absolute configuration of unknown compounds without degradation and/or derivatization. To illustrate this approach, we shall use mycolactone A/B, the causative toxin of Buruli ulcer, as an example.
His second lecture will be presented on March 17th at 3:00 pm, 2017
After a brief review on acyclic stereocontrol and convergent synthesis, we shall discuss the current status on catalytic asymmetric Ni/Cr-mediated coupling reactions, with the focus on a unified, efficient, scalable total synthesis of the halichondrin class of marine natural products. At the end of presentation, we shall give our perspective on a complex natural product synthesis.