The focus of research work undertaken in the research group of Balamurugan is to develop strategies and methods to make molecules which have biological or material relevance. In this regard, the group has been involving in the development of transition metal catalyzed reactions. To be specific, different gold-catalyzed reactions have been developed for the synthesis of biologically relevant molecules such as bicyclic acetals whose skeleton is present in macrolides derived from marine sources and 1-arylnaphthalenes which is the core structure of certain plant derived lignans. Some of the 1-arylnaphthalene derivatives have been found to show antibacterial activity. A small library of these compounds is being synthesized to understand the structure-activity relationship.

Synthesis of carbohydrates and glycoconjugates is another important project we are involved in. In this project we pursue chemical synthesis of chitooligosaccharides having specific acetylated pattern. These compounds will be employed in understanding the structure/function relationships. Chitooligosaccharide probes attached to analytical tags are being synthesized for developing assays. So far we have synthesized all possible chitobioses (AA, DD, AD and DA) attached to p-nitophenyl group at the anomeric position. The biological studies with these compounds will be carried out in collaboration with Prof. Moerschbacher’s group in the University of Muenster, Germany. Also we develop inhibitors of chitosan binding/cleaving proteins. We have interest in making glycopeptides as well in future.

Use of acetals for synthetic applications other than protecting group for carbonyl function is less explored. Synthetic utilities of in situ generated acetals under transition metal and Brønsted acid catalysis is being explored. Several interesting synthetic applications of this system have been established so far.
Apart from these we are involved in the synthesis of natural products which have biological relevance. Presently synthesis of macrolides using a six-carbon building block developed in our lab is undertaken. Natural product targets having piperidine, 6-membered saturated and unsaturated lactones are also in our list of targets.

Our expertise:

• Organic synthesis: carbohydrate synthesis, peptide synthesis, transition metal and Brønsted acid catalysis, solid phase synthesis.
• Purification and characterization of organic compounds.

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