Tetrahedron Symposium Speaker Biography

Justin DuBois

Justin Du Bois was born August 23, 1969 in Los Angeles, California.  He received his B.S. degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992, where he conducted undergraduate research with Professor Ken Raymond.  In 1997 he earned his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology under the direction of Professor Erick Carreira.  Following a two year NIH postdoctoral position with Professor Stephen Lippard at MIT, he joined the faculty at Stanford University as an assistant professor.  In 2005, he was promoted to the associate level.

Du Bois’ research is focused principally on reaction development.  His group has delineated new strategies for the selective conversion of saturated C–H bonds to C–N centers.  These unique oxidation methods are remarkably versatile and have been employed by the Du Bois lab for the stereoselective synthesis of nitrogen-rich natural products including manzacidin A and C, agelastatin, saxitoxin, and tetrodotoxin.  Contemporaneous efforts to explore the mechanism of C–H amination and to evolve new catalytic systems for C–C, C–N, and C–O bond formation are also being pursued.  More recently, his group has become fascinated by the pharmacology of the guanidinium poisons, saxitoxin in particular, and is capitalizing on the de novo synthesis of designed toxin analogues to drive investigations aimed at understanding the structure and integrated function of Na+ ion channels

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