Ce Shi

Development of Antitubercular Agents Targeting Biotin Ligation in Mtb: • Design and synthesize novel nucleoside-based anti-TB agents; • Developed efficient synthetic routes to novel adenosine-like nucleosides; • Work closely with microbiologists on structure activities relationships (SAR) analysis; Development of Mechanism-Based Probes for Structural Biology Studies on NRPS Proteins: • Provided critical chemical information to structural biologists for probe design; • Efficiently synthesized vinylsulfonamide-adenosine probes for adenylation processes studies; • Chemoenzymatically synthesized the CoA analogs for condensation processes studies; • Biochemically characterized the efficacy of molecular probes in enzymatic processes; • Successfully applied these molecular probes in various NRPS biosynthetic pathways; Management of internal and external collaborations with various academic and industrial groups: • Synthesize and deliver the compounds on demand in a timely manner; • Provide medicinal chemistry insight for general research strategies and analog design; • Maintain the internal database for various projects with the external collaborators; • Provide technical support to collaborators for troubleshooting synthetic chemistry problems;

Development of Antitubercular Agents Targeting Biotin Biosynthesis in Mtb: • Designed and synthesized novel dihydropyridone analogs with unique mechanism of action; • Developed efficient synthetic routes to allylic amines bearing acyclic/cyclic structures; • Provided key chemical probes for the design of a continuous assay for target enzyme; Discovery of Novel Vaccine Adjuvants with TLR 7/8 Independent Cytokine Induction: • Improved the synthesis of aminoimidazolquinoline analogs with a novel synthetic strategy; • Designed and synthesized adjuvant-crosslinking reagents for adjuvant-vaccine development;

Chiral Biphenol-Based Phosphorus Ligands in Pd-Catalyzed Asymmetric Allylic Amination: • Designed and synthesized a large library of phosphoramidite and phosphonite ligands for asymmetric transition metal catalysis; • Successfully applied the ligands in Pd-catalyzed asymmetric allylic amination reactions which are key steps in total synthesis of bioactive natural products;