My research interests lies within the area of target oriented synthesis. Specially, synthesizing small organic compounds which exhibit biological activity. Once the target molecule has been synthesized, the focus will revolve around constructing analogs by varying the substituents to determine structure activity relationships (SAR). The overall objective being to optimize the biological activity of the molecule. For instance, Dragomabin is a lipopeptide isolated from the red Panamanian strain of the marine cyanobacterium Lyngbya majuscule. It has been reported to exhibit anti-malarial activity with IC50 values 10.7 and 21.0 mM. By altering R1 and R2 one can optimize the molecule’s biological activity and hopefully add to the repertoire of currently available anti-malarial drugs.
