The research in the Balalaie’s lab is focused on synthetic organic chemistry. We are interested in the development and applications of novel domino and cascade reactions, efficient synthetic approaches, catalysis in organic synthesis and synthesis of peptides.
Domino reactions proceed without isolation of intermediates and represent highly efficient and step-economic processes for the synthesis of complex molecular scaffolds, often polycyclic structures.This high degree of synthetic convergence has been favorably applied in many cases for the formation of polycyclic, heterocyclic, and also valuable carbocyclic scaffolds, which were advantageously employed in medicinal chemistry or natural product syntheses. In this regards, we develop novel post-transformation reaction for the synthesis of complex molecules with high bond forming efficiency.
A part of our research concentrates to the synthesis of some active pharmaceutical ingredients of approved drugs based on peptides and also different heterocyclic backbones. Based on the contract between pharmaceutical companies the synthesis of some APIs and their analogues were done. APIs of Zoledronic acid, Gabapentine, Deferasirox, Pantoperazole, Triptoreline, Leuprolide, Octereotide, Fertireline, Oxytocin and their analogues were synthesized in our research group.
Due to the importance of heterocyclic back bone in organic synthesis and also medicinal chemistry, designing new approaches to access these skeletons are very important. In this regard, a part of our research concentrate on the development of new approaches for the synthesis of heterocyclic backbones through designing of novel reactions using functionalized starting materials and using new catalysts or reaction conditions. We developed some sequential reactions through metal-catalyzed, formation of new functional group such as allene, or radical formation to develop the efficient oxidative C-C and C-X bond forming reactions.
Peptides are attracting increasing attention as therapeutic agents for the treatment of cancer, diabetes,
and cardiovascular diseases. Over the last decade, anticancer peptides have received much attention as
alternative
therapeutic agents that can overcome the limitations of conventional approaches due to several advantages,
including high specificity, low toxicity, high tumor penetrating abilities, and accessible synthesis and
modifications.
Cyclopeptides can be considered as naturally biologically active compounds. Over the last several decades,
many attempts have been made to synthesize complex naturally occurring cyclopeptides, and great progress
has been achieved to advance the field of total synthesis. Moreover, cyclopeptides containing heterocyclic
skeletons have been recently developed into powerful reactions and approaches.
For several key reasons, cyclization of linear peptides is open used as an attractive modification.
First, it is anticipated that by obtaining fixed geometries, cyclic peptides can bind more efficiently to
their
respective receptors. It is additionally hoped that these conformationally constrained cyclic peptides will
be
selective to explicit receptor subtypes, resulting in higher receptor binding affinities compared with their
linear
analogues. Moreover, cyclic peptides are often chosen over their linear analogues due to their enhanced
enzymatic stability
and provide enhanced membrane permeability, which result in improved bioavailability of the cyclopeptides;
they also
possess entropic advantages in molecular recognition.
Meanwhile, cyclopeptides containing heterocyclic backbones have interesting biological activities, a part of
our research
is related to the synthesis of cyclopeptides containing heterocyclic backbones such as imidazole, thiazole,
oxazole, triazole
in the structure of cyclopeptides. These rings endow peptide structures with rigidity, and the interactions
of these structures
with receptors can be studied more readily and accurately.
