Scientific Advisory Committee

Summer Undergraduate
Research Program (SURP)

Translational Research
Grants Program

Summer Faculty
Fellowship Program

Undergraduate research experience is of utmost importance in influencing students’ decisions to enter graduate school and in helping identify which areas of research they pursue. However, many universities and colleges do not offer students opportunities for participation in a significant amount of undergraduate research. The SURP program, which is organized and supervised by Professor Martin Schwartz of the Florida State University Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, brings outstanding undergraduate students from across the US to spend a summer in the laboratories of chemistry professors tackling a research problem of biomedical interest. The program is co-funded by MDS Research Foundation.

The research opportunities for students focus on various aspect of organic synthesis, those involving the design, synthesis, and study of relatively small molecules and their interactions with large “biomolecules” (or macromolecular systems). Over the past ten to fifteen years, the frontiers of organic chemistry research have been moving closer to the modeling of biomolecular interactions and transformations. Knowledge in these fields has advanced to the point that it may be possible in the near future to study on the molecular level, and duplicate in a flask, events such as molecular recognition at a receptor site or enzymic catalysis of organic transformations. It is therefore likely that the not too distant future will bring exciting discoveries in drug design and development, including that directed at cancer.

Summer 2001 Projects

Faculty Mentor/Project

Dr. Igor Alabugin / Enediyne Precursors and Reactions
Dr. Igor Alabugin / New Diradical Precursors
Dr. Robert Holton / Synthetic Studies towards a Total Synthesis of Lonomycin
Dr. Robert Holton / Synthesis of C-ring Precursors Toward the Total Synthesis of 1-Deoxytaxol
Dr. Marie Krafft / Asymmetric Induction in the Pauson-Khand Reaction
Dr. Marie Krafft / Tandem Pauson-Khand Reactions
Dr. Michio Kurosu / Approaches to Asymmetric Catalysis

Faculty Mentor/Project

Dr. Michio Kurosu / Nitroso Aldol reactions
Dr. Robert Holton / Synthesis of 2-oxo-[1,3]-dioxolane-4-carbaldehyde
Dr. Robert Holton / Synthesis of the C17-C24 Fragment of Lonomycin
Dr. Marie Krafft / Claisen Rearrangement of Chiral Esters

Faculty Mentor/Project

Dr. Martin Schwartz / Asymmetric Synthesis of Amino Acids
Dr. Marie Krafft / Tandem Ring Closing Metathesis
Dr. Marie Krafft / Ring Closing Metathesis as an Approach to Trisubstituted Double Bonds
Dr. Robert Holton / A Synthetic Approach to 3'-pyridizine Substituted Taxanes
Dr. Robert Holton / Synthesis of beta-lactams for Taxane studies