News & Events

Frontiers of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Research Workshop

Date: 
Tuesday, April 22, 2025 - 15:00 to 17:00
Speaker: 
Dr. Laurel Schafer, Dr. Jian-Min Yue, Dr. Cai-Guang Yang, Dr. Corinna Schindler, Dr. Hu Zhou, Dr. Tao Huan
Event Category: 
Special - Event
Host: 
Professor David Chen
Location: 
Chemistry B250

Program

3:00 – 3:20, Laurel Schafer, Professor and Head, UBC Chemistry

  • “Hydroaminoalkylation Not Hydroamination: The Catalytic Addition of Amines to Alkenes”

3:20 – 3:40, Jianmin Yue, Professor and Academician, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica (SIMM)

  • “Discovery and Synthesis/Modification of Bioactive Natural Products”

3:40 – 4:00, Caiguan Yang, Professor, SIMM

  • “Targeted drug discovery in RNA epigenetics”

4::00 – 4:20, Corinna Schindler, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Synthetic Solutions for Bioactive Compounds, UBC Chemistry

  • “(2+2)-Cycloadditions for the Synthesis of Strained Ring Systems”

4:20 – 4:40, Hu Zhou, Professor, SIMM

  • “Development of glycoproteomic methods and its clinical application”

4:40 – 5:00, Professor Tao Huan, UBC Chemistry

  • “Advancing Experimental and Computational Mass Spectrometry to Unravel Chemical Complexity in Biological Systems”

 

About the Speakers:

Dr. Laurel Schafer is Canada Research Chair in Catalyst Development and Head of Department of Chemistry, the University of British Columbia. Her research interests bridge the areas of organometallic and organic chemistry where discrete early transition metal and lanthanide complexes were used in the atom-economic, catalytic synthesis of amines. She received numerous awards and honors for her research, and is a Fellow of Royal Society of Canada.

Dr. Jian-Min Yue is an organic chemist and an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on the discovery and development of biological important natural products, including total synthesis, structural modification and drug development. He received numerous honors and awards for his achievement in research, both nationally and internationally. Prof. Yue is currently Director of the Academic Committee of Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica (SIMM) and Director of Ethnomedicine and Biofunctional Molecule Research Center (EBMRC) of SIMM.

Dr. Cai-Guang Yang is a professor at SIMM and a joint faculty member at Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), an Associate Editor of RSC Chemical Biology, and a member of the Editorial Board of National Science Review. His current research focuses on the development of small molecules to target untargeted proteins for the treatment of cancer and drug-resistant bacteria.

Dr. Corinna Schindler is Canada Research Chair in Synthetic Solutions for Bioactive Compounds. Dr. Schindler is developing new methods for synthesizing complex, biologically significant molecules. Dr. Schindler received many prestigious awards for her research, including the 2020 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) and the 2020 ACS Pure Chemistry Award

Dr. Hu Zhou is a professor and the director of mass spectrometry facility of SIMM. His current research focuses on mass spectrometry-based pharmacoproteomic study, to decipher "tumor phenotype and drug modulation-related protein regulation network" at the molecular level.

Dr. Tao Huan is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Metabolomics and Exposomics. He is also affiliated with UBC Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health and UBC Bioproducts Institute. As an analytical chemist, Dr. Huan advances mass spectrometry methods through the synergistic development of analytical chemistry and bioinformatics. His innovative omics-scale analytical strategies enable high-throughput detection and quantification of thousands of small molecules in a single analysis, providing deeper insights into biology and offering a clearer view of environmental exposures.