Honors Program
Office of Research and Experimential Learning
Student Research

Organic Chemistry

• Synthesis of Dioxo - Analogs of Elenic Acid
• Asymmetric Synthesis Using Chiral Mercury Salts
• Alternative Methods for the Instruction of Organic Chemistry Using Visualization and Animation Technologies

Inorganic Chemistry

• Summary of Summer 2007
• Summary of Summer 2006
• Summary of Summer 2005

Biochemistry

• Preparation of an Expression Vector for Ferrochelatase Carrying the gene for Kanamycin Resistance
   

Physical Chemistry

• A Clearer Picture of Air Pollution
• The Electronic Structure of Tantalum Oxide [1 MB PDF]
• Spectral Studies of the Diatomic Molecule Deuterium Iodide

General Chemistry

• An Analysis of How Science Research is Transformed by the Media

Research

Synthesis of Dioxo - Analogs of Elenic Acid

Alejandro Baigorria and Rebecca Cowan Hoye
Department of Chemistry, Macalester College

Elenic acid was first isolated in 1995 from marine sponges in Indonesia. It was found to have anti-neoplastic properties in lung cancer.

Analogs with two oxygen atoms substituting for carbon atoms along the alkyl side chain should provide nucleophilic centers, thereby potentially enhancing the biological activity of elenic acid. Two precursors have been synthesized to date:

The focus of the current research is directed toward reactions involving the syn addition of a methyl group and a lactate group to the terminal triple bond which will ultimately lead to structures analogous to the target compound.

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