Organic synthesis and methodology applied to natural product development
Natural products are a rich source of novel structures that often demand new methodologies if they are to be prepared efficiently by synthetic chemists. Along with challenging functionality, many natural products have intriguing biological activity that can be exploited for applications in human therapeutics and provide tools for understanding fundamental biological processes. Research in the Derksen group centers around natural products with a particular focus on developing novel methods for their synthesis and understanding the molecular interactions involved in eliciting their biological activity. We are proud to be a part of the Experimental and Applied Therapeutics team (within the Charbonneau Cancer Institute and the Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute) where we are able to combine our interest in synthesis and natural products and apply them to clinically relevant model systems of cancer.