What is Synthetic Chemistry?

Answered by Dr. Emily Wearing

Postdoctoral Researcher at UCLA

We interact with chemical compounds in every aspect of our lives; from the medicine we take to cure our ailments to the materials constructing our technology. These chemical compounds often are not found naturally, and so to form these molecules we must build them from simpler components which we can source from the natural world. Synthetic chemistry is the process through which we build larger, more complex molecules from these smaller and simpler building blocks, enabling us to form new compounds which can be used for our desired applications.

While there are multiple varieties of synthetic chemistry depending on what types of molecules are being synthesized, synthetic organic chemistry is a significant focus of C-CAS research. Organic chemistry is the study of molecules which contain the element carbon. Organic molecules make up the building blocks of life including DNA, proteins, lipids, and sugars, and are the basis of pharmaceutical compounds and polymeric materials. Synthetic organic chemistry allows us to build complex organic molecules through chemical reactions, so that we can test and discover new compounds for these applications. However, the ability to synthesize a new compound is dependent on our ability to put together available building blocks into our desired complex molecules, and this can be very challenging, as certain chemical reactions remain unknown.

Researchers who study synthetic organic chemistry focus on a variety of research questions. One area of synthetic organic chemistry research is focused on developing new reactions for the conversion of simple building blocks into more complex compounds, so that we can overcome existing synthetic challenges. Another area is the synthesis of complex molecules formed in nature, called natural products. While nature might be able to form natural products, chemists are interested in being able to access these molecules using synthetic chemistry. In C-CAS, many of our research groups are interested in improving the processes involved in synthetic organic chemistry using computational chemistry and machine learning. These technologies have the power to change how we approach synthetic chemistry by predicting the outcome of chemical reactions, helping chemists develop new chemical transformations through optimization algorithms, and by proposing synthetic pathways to form novel chemical structures.

To learn more about the intersection of synthetic chemistry research and data science in C-CAS please visit the Research page of our website.