As a central discipline in chemistry, the field of organic synthesis has provided indispensable and powerful tools for biology, medicine, and materials, and has had tremendous impacts on energy and the environment. Organic synthesis has a strong relevance to human life at a fundamental level.  

      Research in our group is centered around organic synthesis, primarily focusing on synthetic methodology at the early stage. The synthesis of complex molecules relies on a variety of reliable and broadly useful reactions, which are the cornerstones of organic synthesis. Although numerous reactions have been extensively developed, a number of transformations are still in their infancy. It is thus the mission of modern organic chemistry to develop novel organic reactions that are powerful, efficient, atom-economical, environmentally benign.  

      One type of reaction that our group studies is C–H functionalization. Modern organic synthesis relies mainly on the interconversion of functional groups. Due to their inertness, carbon–hydrogen (C–H) bonds are not generally viewed as functional groups in this context. Direct functionalization of C–H bonds would obviate the need for unproductive functional groups manipulations and reduce chemical waste. Moreover, C–H functionalization can provide opportunities for markedly different synthetic strategies with improved overall efficiency. The long-term goal is to apply C-H functionalization reactions to the synthesis of organic molecules, particularly in the field of pharmaceutical chemistry.

      Another research area in our group is carbohydrate synthesis. Carbohydrates play crucial roles in many biological processes and have great potential for drug development. Due to their structural complexity, the chemical synthesis of oligosaccharides is much more complicated than the synthesis of peptide and oligonucleotides. Our group will pursue the development of efficient carbohydrate synthetic methods, and the synthesis of oligosaccharides for drug discovery and biological studies.