THE
SARPONG
GROUP
exploring organic chemistry through
total synthesis and methods development
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
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 C—C 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
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
July 24, 2023
July 10, 2023
May 31, 2023
May 12, 2023
May 5, 2023
April 19, 2023
April 14, 2023
March 29, 2023
March 27, 2023
Check out this article in ChemistryWorld highlighting our work in skeletal editing!
March 8, 2023
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
November 29, 2022
November 8, 2022
October 14, 2022
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 2015, 528, 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
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Professor of Chemistry
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B.A. – Macalester College
Ph.D. – Princeton University
Postdoc – Caltech
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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.
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