Sarlah David

David obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry at the University of Ljubljana. He carried out his undergraduate research with Prof. K. C. Nicolaou at Scripps Research and Prof. Samuel J. Danishefsky at Columbia. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2011 from the Scripps Research under the guidance of Professor K. C. Nicolaou, and was a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Erick M. Carreira at the ETH Zürich. In 2014, David joined the faculty at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and moved to Rice University in 2024. His research interests span from the synthesis of complex, biologically active natural products and the related chemical biology to methodology development.

Research projects: Central to our research program is the discovery of new reactivities and guiding principles for the synthesis of complex molecules. We are especially attracted to problems encountered at the frontiers of organic synthesis, where the development of new solutions and approaches is highly desirable and necessary. Natural products provide a powerful setting to examine and study methods as well as to bridge organic synthesis and human medicine. Our research in the area of natural products is placed on identification and analysis of new chemotypes that display promising therapeutic potential and are characterized by novel or unknown activities to disease-related biomolecules. The main research interests of the group are the target-driven as well as methodology-driven synthesis of structurally complex, biologically active natural products where fresh approaches and methods culminate in innovative design and efficient outcomes. Additionally, our group is intensely involved in the discovery and development of catalytic asymmetric transformations as well as stoichiometric processes. Specifically, the focus is on transformations that fundamentally expand the retrosynthetic arsenal and provide access to high-value-added compounds.