Contact Information
University of Illinois
270 RAL, Box 107-5
600 South Mathews Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801
Research Areas
Biography
Professor Sarlah received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the University of Ljubljana in 2006 and his Ph.D. from the Scripps Research Institute in 2011. Following a postdoctoral stay at ETH Zürich, he joined the faculty at Illinois in 2014. His research interests span from the synthesis of complex, biologically active natural products and the related chemical biology to methodology development.
Research Interests
synthesis of natural products and the related chemical biology; methodology development; asymmetric catalysis
Research Description
Central to our research program is the advancement of the science of synthesis. We are involved in natural products chemistry and synthesis, reaction innovation and design including asymmetric catalysis. We aim to provide new solutions to the problems encountered at the frontline of organic synthesis that benefit chemistry and enable advances in the allied fields of chemical biology, material science, and medicine.
Awards and Honors
2021 Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award
2020 KYOTO Rising-Star Lectureship Award
2020 FMC New Investigator Award
American Cancer Society Research Scholar, 2020-2024
2019 Eli Lilly Grantee Award
2019 Amgen Young Investigator Award
2019 BMS Unrestricted Grant Award in Synthetic Chemistry
2019 Grammaticakis-Neumann Award
2017 Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors Scholar by the College of LAS
2017 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow
2017 NSF CAREER Award
Additional Campus Affiliations
Associate Professor, Chemistry
Associate Professor, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology
Honors & Awards
2021 Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award
2020 KYOTO Rising-Star Lectureship Award
2020 FMC New Investigator Award
American Cancer Society Research Scholar, 2020-2024
2019 Eli Lilly Grantee Award
2019 Amgen Young Investigator Award
2019 BMS Unrestricted Grant Award in Synthetic Chemistry
2019 Grammaticakis-Neumann Award
2017 Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors Scholar by the College of LAS
2017 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow
2017 NSF CAREER Award
Recent Publications
Angelini, E., Martinelli, M., Roà, E., Ungarean, C. N., Salome, C., Lefebvre, Q., Bournez, C., Fessard, T. C., & Sarlah, D. (2024). Diversification of Simple Arenes into Complex (Amino)cyclitols. Chemistry - A European Journal, 30(6), Article e202303262. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202303262
Davis, C. W., Zhang, Y., Li, Y., Martinelli, M., Zhang, J., Ungarean, C., Galer, P., Liu, P., & Sarlah, D. (2024). Copper-Catalyzed Dearomative 1,2-Hydroamination. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Article e202407281. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202407281
Roy, P., Maturano, J., Hasdemir, H., Lopez, A., Xu, F., Hellman, J., Tajkhorshid, E., Sarlah, D., & Das, A. (2024). Elucidating the Mechanism of Metabolism of Cannabichromene by Human Cytochrome P450s. Journal of Natural Products, 87(4), 639-651. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jnatprod.3c00336
Siddiqi, Z., Bingham, T. W., Shimakawa, T., Hesp, K. D., Shavnya, A., & Sarlah, D. (2024). Oxidative Dearomatization of Pyridines. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 146(4), 2358-2363. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.3c13603
Matsuoka, W., Kawahara, K. P., Ito, H., Sarlah, D., & Itami, K. (2023). π-Extended Rubrenes via Dearomative Annulative π-Extension Reaction. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 145(1), 658-666. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.2c11338