The Cannon Lab is one of the recipients of a 2020 grant for research at principally undergraduate institutions from the journal Organic Syntheses! The grant provides a stipend and money for supplies for a student to conduct research over the summer in our lab. Many thanks to Organic Syntheses for selecting us for this award!

Our work on the total syntheses of the alkaloid natural products (–)-coniine, DAB-1, and nectrisine just appeared in ACS Omega! This was collaborative work with Prof. Deardorff to develop a robust synthesis of these biologically active natural products. The approach utilizes an enzyme-catalyzed hydrocyanation to establish the key stereochemistry, which is followed by transition metal-catalyzed reactions to transform this building block into the natural products. We envision this approach as a general platform for the enantioselective syntheses of alkaloid natural products. Congrats to the undergraduates that worked on this project together!

The Undergraduate Research Center is celebrating 20 years of supporting our students. Our own Prof. Cannon and Marc Kawada are featured in this video celebrating its success.

Check out Molly’s “My Oxy Story” currently featured on Oxy’s new students page! We’re very proud she was able to make the most of the opportunity to do research with us at Oxy.

Congratulations to Anne Marie Crooke ’19, one of this year’s Norris Science Scholars at Occidental! Anne Marie will use this prestigious award to continue her research using catalysts that harvest visible light to synthesize carbon-carbon bonds.

A number of Cannon Lab members presented their research at the Southern California Conference on Undergraduate Research at Cal Poly Pomona. It’s always fun to share our work with our peers!

Katherine Forbes ’18 presented her summer research at Merck in Boston as part of her ACS Division of Organic Chemistry SURF. Congratulations to Katherine and all the DOC SURF awardees!

Cannon lab members Matt Schmidt ’18 and Natalie Dwulet ’17 were featured in a recent article on Oxy’s website highlighting their work in the summer research program. We’re always excited to share our love of o-chem with our friends!

This week was Occidental’s summer research conference. We had a great time sharing our work this summer with our peers and learning about what all the other researchers on campus accomplished!

Members of the Cannon lab attended the 45th National Organic Symposium at UC Davis. Lots of fun and great science in the Central Valley!