Professor Scott E. Denmark
Reynold C. Fuson Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
2019
Professor Denmark has pioneered the concept of chiral Lewis base activation of Lewis acids for catalysis with Main Group elements. He has also developed palladium-catalyzed cross-couplings with organofunctional silicon compounds and mechanistic studies on the Suzuki-Miyaura cross coupling. In recent years, his group has investigated the use of chemoinformatics and machine learning to identify and optimize catalysts for enantioselective reactions. Earlier contributions include the development and application of tandem heterodiene cycloadditions for the synthesis of complex natural and unnatural nitrogen containing compounds. He maintains a longstanding interest in organosilicon, -phosphorus, and –lithium chemistry.
Professor Yoshito Kishi
Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, Harvard University, U.S.A.
2018
Professor Kishi has been engaged in a wide range of research on complex natural products with significant biological activities. He pioneered the area of acyclic stereocontrol, completed the total synthesis of numerous complex natural products including neurotoxins (palytoxin, tetrodotoxin, etc.), polyether antibiotics (monensin, lasalocid A, etc.) and antitumor natural products (halichondrins, mitomycin, etc.), and advanced a new concept for stereochemistry assignment of complex organic molecules. Notably, his research efforts on the halichondrin class of marine natural products paved the way for the successful creation of Eisai’s anticancer drug Halaven (Eribulin mesylate).
