Lucas Hernandez, a fifth-year graduate student in the David Sarlah group, received the 2019 Alfred R. Bader Award for Student Innovation.
The Bader Awards are given by Sigma-Aldrich in honor of the company’s co-founder to recognize student chemists whose innovations have the potential to advance science today and spark progress into the future.
Hernandez’ research is focused on the synthesis of anticancer natural products isolated from the Hawaiian spider lily. These molecules have a broad range of biological activities, but detailed studies are impeded by low isolation yields from their natural sources.
The Sarlah group has developed the synthesis of these natural products on the largest scale reported to date—an achievement enabled by the development of a new reaction that converts these chemicals to value-added compounds in an efficient and cost-effective manner. This work has allowed for further investigations into the biological activities of these natural products as potential anticancer therapeutics.
Hernandez will present his research and receive his award in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Bader Student Chemistry Symposium on September 12, 2019.
Learn more about the Bader Awards here.