About The Vanderwal Lab

The Vanderwal lab comprises a diverse group of graduate and undergraduate researchers, postdoctoral associates, and visiting scholars.

We are primarily engaged in strategy-guided synthesis of complex, biologically interesting natural products. Prototypical projects focus on designing and executing short syntheses of bioactive targets, with the goal of also accessing focused analogues for basic SAR studies. Ideally, information gathered from those studies will inform the synthesis of chemical probe molecules to unearth novel mechanisms of action.

Since the founding of the lab nearly 20 years ago, our research has led to concise syntheses and collaborative biological studies of complex alkaloids, terpenoids, and polyhalogenated natural products. We have also engaged in new methods development, investigations of novel chemical scaffolds, biosynthesis experiments, and discovery of previously unseen biochemical interactions.

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