Professor Philip Kocienski
- Position: Emeritus Professor
- Areas of expertise: Organometallic chemistry <br>Synthesis; Natural products <br>Antibiotics; Vitamins <br>Antifungal agents; Antitumour agents, immunosuppressants; Antiviral agents<br>Antiinflammatory agents; Enzyme inhibitors
- Email: P.J.Kocienski@leeds.ac.uk
- Phone: +44(0)113 343 6400
Research interests
Our research concerns the development of new synthetic methods and their application to the synthesis of biologically active natural products. A conspciuous example is the sulfone-based olefination (the Julia–Kocienski reaction) which we developed for the synthesis of herboxidiene and rapamycin. It is now widely used in fragment linkage reactions in complex natural prodyuct synthesis. Our interests also embrace various aspects of organometallic chemistry such as the use of planar chiral cationic π-allylmetal complexes for the stereospecific appendage of chains to rings and the stereoselective synthesis of trisubstituted alkenes via copper(I)-mediated1,2-metallate rearrangements which features in our syntheses of D-erythro-sphingosine and manoalide.