My name is Tanvin Farjana. I am a rising senior at the City College of New York. I am majoring in chemistry with a minor in psychology. This summer I have been working in the lab studying the fundamental organometallic reactivity and mechanism and applying these studies to develop new synthetic strategies for generating biologically active organic molecules. Along with my mentor, we wired on developing synthetic pathways that facilitate the deliberate and consistent manipulation of molecules in three dimensions. To achieve this, we employ configurationally stable, enantioenriched
organometallic nucleophiles as a reliable source of stereogenic carbon centers that can be transferred and manipulated through stereospecific cross-coupling reactions. Currently, transition metal-catalyzed cross-coupling methodologies are dependable for generating flat, conjugated molecular subunits, but they are not suitable for creating branched (chiral) molecular structures. Therefore, our focus lies on developing cross-coupling
techniques that allow for the precise transfer of a stereogenic center, introducing a fresh approach to asymmetric synthesis. Our strategies for predictably modifying three-dimensional molecular structures are actively being applied in medicinal chemistry and material science, where they show great promise.