Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The University of Chicago received a $590,711 Project Grant award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859), effective July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2031. This R35 Maximizing Investigators' Research Award funds a five-year research initiative focused on developing new synthetic chemistry tools and methodologies to accelerate the preparation of pharmaceutical analogues for medicinal chemistry applications. The research encompasses three primary areas: leveraging carbon-carbon bond activation for late-stage skeletal modifications and deconstructive syntheses of complex molecular scaffolds; enabling palladium/norbornene cooperative catalysis for site-selective arene functionalization and functional group transposition; and exploiting boron-based heteroarenes such as 1,2-azaborines and 1,2-oxaborines to enhance analogue synthesis capabilities.

The deliverables from this award include the development of new synthetic reagents, catalytic methods, and chemical entities designed to streamline and simplify analogue synthesis processes within drug lead optimization workflows. Specifically, the research will address five key scientific objectives: achieving late-stage skeletal modifications of lactams through ring contraction and expansion; enabling site-selective oxygen migration on aromatic compounds; developing chemoselective methods for carbonyl group replacement or deletion; creating versatile chemical precursors based on 1,2-oxaborines for accessing diverse core structures; and enabling transformations between lactams and unsaturated units to generate bridged and fused nitrogen-heterocycles. The anticipated outcome is a comprehensive suite of highly effective synthetic tools that will enhance the efficiency of pharmaceutical analogue preparation and support accelerated drug development processes.