NIH awards Professor Harman $2.1 M (MIRA) to support his group's research program on dearomatization

The goal of the awarded research program is to develop new classes of chemical compounds to be screened for efficacy against various diseases. The synthetic approach described in the funded proposal, which involves a tungsten-activated benzene substrate, is fundamentally different than other known approaches to cyclohexene and cyclohexane compounds, and allows access to new materials with widely diverse shapes that are rich in amines, amides, carboxylic acids, esters, and heterocyclic fragments groups that are ubiquitous in pharmaceutical agents. Access to such compounds improves the chances for the discovery and development of new medicines to improve public health.