Since the establishment of the UIC Chemistry Department, in 1965, the Organic Division has steadily achieved national and international recognition for both the quality of its research program and its commitment to education at the undergraduate and graduate level. Six principle investigators together with approximately 50 graduate students are currently funded by six NIH and two NSF grants, which provide substantial support for a broad range of research activities. The faculty of the Organic Division at UIC also has a proven track record of recruiting, training and mentoring undergraduate researchers.

The research interests of our division run the gamut from physical organic chemistry to virology. Our most recent recruit, Laura Anderson, for example, is interested in discovering new pericyclic transformations involving carbonyl ylides, metal-heteroatom multiple bonds, and sigmatropic rearrangements related to the Fischer-Indole synthesis. Laura's goal in this regard, is to design new methods to provide practical solutions to general problems using both physical organic and organometallic mechanistic studies. As a recognized leader in the field of physical organic and radical chemistry, Martin Newcomb's research focus is on the use of laser flash photolysis to interrogate the mechanism of ultrafast reactions involving radicals and radical-ion reactive intermediates. These mechanistic studies have enabled the deconvolution of the mechanisms of metallo-enzyme-catalyzed oxidation reactions and provide fundamental insight into radical rearrangement and fragmentation reactions. The Organic Division at UIC has significant strength in the area of metal-catalyzed organic synthesis. Vladimir Gevorgyan, chair of the division, is focused on the discovery of new transition metal-catalyzed and organocatalytic transformations. Special emphasis on mechanistic investigation provides insight into the origin of chemo- and stereoselectivity of these discovered processes. Vlad's group also applies these methods and strategies to the preparation of valuable building blocks for synthetic organic chemistry and libraries of biologically important molecules. Daesung Lee's group also explores the reactivity of transition metals to discover new reactions and is targeting the development of stereoselective enyne metathesis, metallotropic [1,3]-shift, the ruthenium-catalyzed Alder-ene reaction, and electrophilic transition metal carbenoids. Daesung also continues to show case these methods in the total synthesis of complex, biologically active natural products. Transition metal-mediated processes are also the focus of Tom Driver's research, which is directed towards the development of new methods that increase the structural complexity of readily available substrates. Tom and his group are currently interested in the discovery of new transition metal-mediated reactions, which transform C-H bonds into C-N bonds using azide starting materials. They believe that studying the mechanisms of these transformations will enable the development of new methodology. Duncan Wardrop's group is focused on the development of new strategies and methods for the efficient synthesis of highly functionalized natural products and compounds with useful pharmacological properties. Areas of interest include the chemistry of hypervalent iodine, nitrenium ions and other electron-deficient divalent reactive intermediates as well as the development of antiviral agents to combat the Ebola virus. Current synthetic targets of the Wardrop group include the alkaloids australine, broussonetine G, eudistomin-K sulfoxide and catharanthine.