Chemoenzymatic Synthesis of Oxygen Heterocycles

The sustainable production of valuable fine chemicals, including pharmaceuticals, is of high and continuous interest for science and society. The development of clean and effective synthetic strategies plays an essential role toward achieving this goal. We will design and develop novel strategies to access complex and diverse small and mid-sized molecules with high efficiency, selectivity and optimal resource utilization. In this project, we will target saturated oxygen heterocycles (SOHs), which are used ubiquitary in many fields of life, science and technology. SOHs are broadly applied in the fragrance industry and have received huge interest from the pharmaceutical industry. Presently, SOHs are mainly produced by chemical methods. In the proposed project a new, resource-conserving method for the preparation of SOHs is presented, which combines two powerful, green synthetic methods: tandem reactions (for efficiency) and biocatalysis (for selectivity). Biocatalysts or enzymes, respectively, proved in recent years to be an economically friendly and cost-efficient alternative to several chemical methods with a broad field of application. In the proposed project, enzymes (so-called epoxide hydrolases) will be applied for the preparation of pure, added-value building blocks required for SOH production under environmentally benign conditions with a minimal number of steps and reduced waste production. Envisioned applications of this strategy range from valuable fragrances to complex natural products with considerable potential in cancer treatment as well as to novel scaffolds for drug discovery.