Damon Runyon Researchers

Dr. Blair aims to address a key bottleneck in drug discovery by developing a generalizable strategy for synthesis of complex natural products to be used as therapeutics. Small molecules created by nature (natural products) often possess extraordinary functional potential and have led to many transformative human medicines. Unfortunately, despite important progress in the field of natural product synthesis, the methods available for synthesizing such complex natural products are typically too slow for practical drug discovery and development. He proposes to break down complex natural products into simple building blocks, which can then be iteratively assembled through automation to generate natural products.