Total Synthesis Research Project Presentations

[organic_chem_student]

What is the best way to present a total synthesis project?

Should you begin with presenting the importance/bioactivity of the natural product or with the method that allows to obtain the scaffold?

How do you ensure to convey that this research is important?

[Titanocene]

For the finer details, it depends on what venue you are presenting at. To your class? To a general audience? To your professors? At a conference? etc. This  is important for the approach of the presentation. However, overall, the good synthesis presentations I have seen all have common themes regardless of the venue.

The common themes are:

1. Begin with a description of the family of compounds the natural product of target is a part of. Here you can talk about some interesting history about where this family of compounds originates from and how they play a role in the biological organism.

2. Discuss the biological importance of the compound, even if small or somewhat unfounded. Also, you can discuss how this work advances total synthesis forward as a whole. For example, what complex motif, that has proven difficult in the past, are we tackling now?

3. Illustrate, with pristine reaction schemes, the interesting chemical reactions and steps you took to accomplish the synthesis. How was each step interesting? What knowledge did you gain from it? If your venue is more advanced, discuss the retro-synthetic analysis you undertook.

4. End with a discussion about what this synthesis had provided and what was taken away. Again talking about the biological significance.

I'm a methodology guy but all the really enjoyable synthesis talks I have seen have these elements. One talk in particular was Sarah Reisman's progress toward talatismane at the 2017 ACS DOC NOS. That was an incredible presentation.

Best

Edited October 22, 2017 by Titanocene