THE

SARPONG

GROUP

 

exploring organic chemistry through

total synthesis and methods development

 

Our ResearchOur Values

Research Interests

Natural Products

Natural products provide a platform for developing solutions to longstanding problems in chemical synthesis. Our group does this through the development of novel strategies toward challenging targets.

Methods Development

Development of new methods provides powerful tools to implement strategies for synthesis. Among our interests are new ways to build and cleave carbon-carbon bonds through skeletal rearrangements.

Check out our virtual lab tour for visit weekend!

 

Group News

November 20, 2024

Congratulations to Brandon, Alessio, Taku, Dear, Sebastian, Sojung and our collaborators from the Paton group on the publication of our full account on calyciphylline A-type daphniphyllum alkaloids in JACS!

November 19, 2024

We’re excited to share our work on a quantitative assessment of skeletal edits and their potential to expand accessible chemical space! This cheminformatic platform, now available on ChemRxiv, was developed in collaboration with Lucas Karas from the Sigman group and Reilly Eason & Charles Yeung at Merck.

November 12, 2024

Congratulations to former group member Asst. Prof. Goh Sennari in the Hirose-Sunazuka research group at the Satoshi Omura Institute (Kitasato University) and postdoc Dr. Hiroki Yamagishi on the publication of their review article on camphor C–H functionalization in Chemistry Letters!

October 1, 2024

Welcome to our entering class of 2024! Matthew S., Matt A., and Atang!

 

September 23, 2024

Beautiful work from the Thomson group on deuterium incorporation on each position of pinene in JOC. Thank you for making Nicolle Doering and Richmond a part of it!

September 9, 2024

Congratulations to Brandon on the publication of his review on molecular complexity in natural product synthesis in Nature Reviews Chemistry.

September 5, 2024

Congratulations to Kristen and Jin as well as our collaborators Louis DeLescure from the Paton group and Melissa Hardy from the Sigman laboratory on the publication of a new approach to aryl amines in Chemical Science!

July 24, 2024

Congrats Charis, Lucas, Ryan, and Timothée on their work on the development of the CC Reductive Amination, now out on ChemRxiv!

July 12, 2024

Congratulations to Paul on the publication of his beautiful synthesis of baphicacanthcusine A in ACIE that exploits symmetry in an unusual way!

May 15, 2024

Congratulations to Stefan, Goh, Kristen, Kazu and our collaborators Dr. Mihai Popescu and Prof. Rob Paton on the publication of our approach to harringtonolide and computational insight in Nature Communications.

 

March 18, 2024

Congratulations to Jinsu and Christina and our collaborators from the Baik group on the publication of our work on the synthesis of oxepane derivatives using a Rh-catalyzed transformation of squarate derivatives with acrylonitrile.

 

March 9, 2024

Kerry and Fernando’s approach to scholarinine A in collaboration with Dr. Blane Zavesky at Corteva Agriscience is in Tetrahedron Letters as a part of a special issue honoring Prof. Thomas J. Maimone upon his receipt of the Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award for 2024.

March 6, 2024

Congratulations to Assistant Prof. Goh Sennari (former senior project scientist in our laboratory) and Hiroki on their publication in JACS “C-ing us at 8” on camphor!

February 13, 2024

Sojung’s mechanistic investigation of photomediated ring contractions of N-aryl saturated heterocycles with Henrik and Justin in collaboration with the Zuerch group and our collaborators from AbbVie and Merck is in JACS!

February 6, 2024

Stefan, Goh, Kristen and visiting scholar Kazu’s work in collaboration with the Paton lab on a ring expansion approach to harringtonolide is now online on ChemRXiv!

January 29, 2024

Congrats to Logan, Sam and our collaborators from Merck and the Sigman lab on the publication of our work on 14N to 15N exchange in azines in JACS!

January 11, 2024

Congratulations to Brandon, Alessio, and Dear on the beautiful synthesis of daphenylline in JACS!

November 30, 2023

Congratulations to Melissa, Jack, Kenta, Isabel, Lynée and our collaborator Zhitao from the Tantillo group on the publication of a total synthesis of pupukeanane natural products in ACIE!

November 27, 2023

Congratulations to Pang and Paul on the publication of their manuscript on a new approach to thiodiazole dioxides in collaboration with our colleagues at Janssen!

November 6, 2023

Swap it out! Congratulations to Logan  and Sam and our collaborators Dr. Charles Yeung at Merck and Dr. Lucas Karas in the Sigman Laboratory at Utah on a 14N-to-15N skeletal edit of nitrogen heteroaromatics. Great related works from the Joel Smith, Feuillastre/Audisio, and McNally groups!

October 27, 2023

Congratulations to Sojung on her Perspective in Science on the Zuo group’s latest paper in Science!

October 13, 2023

Congrats to Karan on his first paper! Great work with the Houk lab at UCLA on the report of an unusual Pd-mediated rearrangement of spirononene derivatives in Chemical Science! An homage to Richmond’s advisor, Semmelhack, who first studied these compounds!

October 5, 2023

Congratulations to Daniel, Alex, and Martin on the publication of their work on an oxabenzonornadiene rearrangement in Organic Letters!

July 24, 2023

Lucas and Stefan report an alternative way to cleave methoximes to ketones using photoexcited nitroarenes! Now on ChemRxiv!

 

July 10, 2023

Former group postdoc and Assistant Project Scientist Goh Sennari has written a nice review about the cephalotanes and longibornanes, which is currently  on ChemRXiv!

 

May 31, 2023

Check out this story on skeletal editing in Nature which features some of our group’s work!

 

May 12, 2023

Congratulations to “Team Deconstructive Functionalization” with David taking the lead in bringing all our efforts together along with our collaborators at Eli Lilly, the Musaev and the Baik groups on our publication in JACS!

 

May 5, 2023

 Congratulations to Brandon and Michael and our collaborators at Janssen on the publication of a skeletal editing approach to build bicyclopentanes from aza-bicyclohexanes in JACS!

 

April 19, 2023

How do you do, fellow chemists? Congratulations to Kristen for being awarded a UC Dissertation Fellowship to finish out her PhD!

 

April 14, 2023

Congrats to Kristen on being selected as a speaker for the Celebration of Women in Chemistry Symposium at UF Scripps as a Future Leader in Chemistry!

 

March 29, 2023

Congrats to Gwyneth Pudner for being awarded an NSF graduate research fellowship!  We are so proud of you!

 

March 27, 2023

Check out this article in ChemistryWorld highlighting our work in skeletal editing!

March 8, 2023

Congratulations to Ian and Jess on the publication of their work on skeletal diversification of bicyclic frameworks in Chemical Communications! 

February 23, 2022

Congrats to Brandon and Michael and our collaborators at Janssen on their skeletal editing approach to bridge-functionalized BCPs from aza-BCHs now out in ChemRxiv

November 30, 2022

Congrats to Kristen on her new approach to benzoates from pyrone derivatives in TL as a part of a special issue dedicated to Prof. John Wood!

November 29, 2022

Cut it out! Logan and Filippo’s publication of a formal deletion of carbon to convert pyrimidines to pyrazoles is out in JACS!

November 8, 2022

Congratulations to Team Taxanes on the publication of a general approach to taxane cores in JACS!

October 14, 2022

Congrats to Christina and Suh on the publication of their  C–C cleavage/Mizoroki–Heck cascade strategy that has led to a synthesis of the patchoulols. Now out in JACS!

October 5, 2022

Congratulations to Goh, Kristen, Stefan, Max, and Alina on their unified syntheses of cephanolide and ceforalide norditerpenoids now out in JACS! Get behind the scenes with the folks from our group’s cephanolide and ceforalide syntheses in JACS!

@SarpongGroup

Selected Publications

Deconstructive fluorination of cyclic amines by carbon-carbon cleavage

Science 2018, 361, 171–174.

Roque, J. B.; Kuroda, Y.; Göttemann, L. T.; Sarpong, R.

Isolation, Synthesis, and Bioactivity Studies of Phomactin Terpenoids

Nature Chemistry 2018, 10, 938–945.

Kuroda, Y.; Nicacio, K. J.; da Silva, I. A.; Leger, P. R.; Chang, S.; Gubiani, J. R.; Deflon, V. M.; Nagashima, N.;Rode, A.; Blackford, K.; Ferreira, A. G.; Sette, L. D.; Williams, D. E.; Andersen, R. J.; Jancar, S.; Berlinck, R. G. S.; Sarpong, R. 

Network-Analysis-Guided Synthesis of Weisaconitine D and Liljestrandinine


Nature
 2015528, 493–498.

Marth, C.J.; Gallego, G.M.; Lee, J.C.; Lebold, T.P.; Kulyk, S.; Kou, K.G.M.; Qin, J.; Lilien, R.; Sarpong, R. 

Professor Richmond Sarpong

College of Chemistry Executive
Associate Dean
~
Professor of Chemistry
~
B.A. – Macalester College
Ph.D. – Princeton University
Postdoc – Caltech
~

Richmond’s research interests are in the area of chemical synthesis with a special focus on the strategies and methods to prepare bioactive natural products. These studies are rooted in a strong foundation in the physical organic phenomena and mechanisms that guide organic transformations, with an ultimate eye to learn about and exploit the biological activity of the compounds that his laboratory prepares to improve and sustain quality of life.

Richmond’s Bio

Curriculum Vitae (CV)

Contact Us

8th Floor Latimer Hall,
UC Berkeley Campus
Berkeley, CA 94720

+1 510-644-4158

rsarpong [at] berkeley [dot] edu

Administrative Assistant

meggie [at] berkeley [dot] edu

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