DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY

Affiliations

Research Statement

Our collaborative and interdisciplinary program is at the forefront of the discovery of new catalytic reactions and their application in medicine and energy. Specifically, we have pioneered the use of small organic molecules as catalysts in a multitude of high value chemical transformations. These processes provide new avenues for molecular construction and offer sustainable advantages to established transition metal catalyzed approaches. In the realm of therapeutic translational science, we are creating new routes to natural products and related analogs with promising activities against cancer and central nervous system disorders.

Selected Publications

Connors, G. M.; Pham, T. D.; Becker, J. H.; Argus, A. A.^#; Baba, K.; Kinoshita, T.; Munshi, H. G.*; Scheidt, K. A.* “Exploiting Acquired Drug Resistance in Pancreatic Cancer Through Selective Covalent Targeting of MAP2K4/7,” ACS Chem. Bio. 2026, accepted.

Sil, S.; Maskeri, M. A.; Scheidt, K. A.* “Graphpancake: a Python package for representing organic molecules as molecular graphs utilizing electronic structure theory,” J. Cheminform. 2026, https://doi.org/10.1186/s13321-026-01182-w.

Hwang, M. U.; Gogoi, A. R.; Scurria, M. X.; Gutierrez, O.; Scheidt, K. A. “Photochemical Cyclization of α-Amino Esters to Access 3-Azetidinones,” Chem. Sci. 2026, 17, 6766-6772.

Cao, J.; Schull, C. R.; Scheidt, K.A.* “Deconstructive Radical-Radical Coupling for Programmable Remote Acylation,” Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2025, e202507542.

Schull, C. R.; Cao, J.; Mitton-Fry, S. R.; Mrksich, M.; Scheidt, K.A.* “C(sp3)-H Carboxylation via Carbene Photoredox Cooperative Catalysis,” ACS Catalysis, 2025 15, 1287-1293.

Peng, Q.; Hwang, M. U.; Rentería-Gómez, A.; Mukherjee, P.; Young, R. M; Qiu, Y.; Wasielewski, M. R.; Gutierrez, O.; Scheidt, K. A.* “Photochemical Phosphorus-Enabled Scaffold Remodeling of Carboxylic Acids,” Science 2024, 385, 1471-1477.

Kim, D. R.; Orr, M. J.; Yu, X.; Munshi, H. H.; Wang, A.; Trudeau, C. R.; Kwong, A. J.; Cheng, S.-Y.*; Scheidt, K. A.* “Synthesis and Structural Optimization of ATG4B Inhibitors for the Attenuation of Treatment-Induced Autophagy in Glioblastoma,” ACS Med. Chem. Lett. 2024, 15, 2, 258–264.

Nam, Y.; Tam, A. T.; Miller, E. R.; Scheidt. K. A.* “A Platform for the Synthesis of Corynantheine-type Corynanthe Alkaloids,” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2024, 146, 118–124.