Professor Mingji Dai (Emory University) Seminar

Title: Chemistry Innovation and Biological Discovery through Natural Product Total Synthesis Abstract: This talk will focus on our recent efforts in function and efficiency-driven total synthesis of medicinally important natural products. The target molecules include macrolides, alkaloids, and polycyclic diterpenoids. Novel and enabling synthetic strategies and methodologies including skeletal editing, radical retrosynthesis, and catalytic carbonylation toward these target molecules will be highlighted. Biological evaluation and target identification of the selected natural products and their analogs will be discussed as well. These biological endeavors have led us to the exciting territories of targeting the previously undruggable disease proteins for novel therapeutic development. Overall, this talk will emphasize how we use natural product total synthesis to achieve chemistry innovation and biological discovery. Biosketch: Dr. Mingji Dai grew up in a small village in Sichuan, China and received his B.S. degree from Peking University in 2002 under the mentorship of Professors Zhen Yang and Jiahua Chen. After working as a research associate in the same laboratory for two more years, he went to New York City in 2004 and earned his Ph.D. degree with distinction from Columbia University in 2009 under the mentorship of Professor Samuel J. Danishefsky. From 2009 to 2012, he received postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Professor Stuart L. Schreiber at Harvard University and the Broad Institute. In August 2012, he began his independent career as an assistant professor in the Chemistry Department and Center for Cancer Research of Purdue University. He was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2018 and full professor in 2020. In August 2022, he was recruited to Emory University as the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Chemistry. His lab focuses on developing novel strategies and methodologies for the synthesis of complex natural products and other medicin