Our research program is in the area of organic and medicinal chemistry. In addition to organic synthesis and methods development we have projects involving structural analysis, machine learning, and data science as applied to small molecules of interest in drug discovery. The following overlapping themes
(i) Reactions and synthetic methods: we are inspired by structural chemotypes found in natural products and "drug-like" molecules. Reactions of interest include those involving iminium and oxonium ion chemistry, pericyclic reactions (i.e., cycloadditions, sigmatropic rearrangements, electrocyclizations), macrocyclizations, organoborom chemistry, functionalizations (acylations, urea and guanidine forming processes), and multi-component reactions. We are interested in syntheses that are conducted in both a conventional manner, as in approaches toward natural product targets, as well as using parallel solution-phase, polymer-supported methods and microwave accelerated reactions for medicinal chemistry applications.
(ii) Target molecules: many of the synthetic methods we are interested in address approaches toward nitrogen and oxygen heterocycles, macrocycles, unusual nitrogen-based functionalities, and "drug-like" scaffolds. Completed total syntheses from the group include himeic acid A, kitastatin, antimycin, hydrazidomycin, martinelline, luotonin A and tetrahydrolipstatin.
(iii) Biological targets: We are particularly interested in molecules involved in protein degradation pathways (either by activation or inhibition), such as protein targets in the ubiquitin proteasome system, and ClpP protease. We are developing molecules that interfere with cancer, viral and bacterial pathogens.
(iv) We work collaboratively to combine our organic synthesis and small molecule design expertise with biologists and computational scientists. For example, we are currently working on the development of generative flow network based approaches for small molecule ligand design, as well as exploring direct to biology strategies together with scientists in the Faculty of Medicine, SickKids Hospital, and the Acceleration Consortium.
The primary training offered in the group is in organic chemistry. The diversity of projects and students is an important part of the group dynamic, allowing students to experience a range of different chemistries and biological and medicinal applications. We generally hold two group meetings per week: one on current literature, and research or topics and the other meeting on either a problem set or retrosynthetic analysis. Graduate students and post-doctoral fellows are encouraged to work independently and test out their own ideas. If you are interested in joining the group or have questions, please contact Prof. Batey directly.
