Dr. Dawei Ma received his PhD in 1989 from Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC), and did his postdoctoral studies at the University of Pittsburgh and Mayo Clinic. He returned to SIOC in 1994, and was appointed as research professor in 1995. From 2001 to 2010 he was the director of State Key Laboratory of Bioorganic & Natural Products Chemistry. He is presently director of drug discovery center at Institute of Oncology and Basic Medicine, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Research Interests

Discovery of small modulators for target proteins and special biological processes; development of new synthetic methodologies; total synthesis of complex natural products and their SAR and action mode studies.

Selected Publications

Wang P, Gao Y, Ma D. Divergent entry to gelsedine-type alkaloids: total syntheses of (-)-Gelsedilam, (-)-Gelsenicine, (-)-Gelsedine, and (-)-Gelsemoxonine, Am. Chem. Soc. (2018) 140, 11608-11612.

Liu J, Ma D. A unified approach for the assembly of atisine- and hetidine-type diterpenoid alkaloids: total syntheses of azitine and the proposed structure of Navirine C. Chem. Int. Ed. (2018) 57, 6676-6680.

Chen Z, Jiang Y, Zhang L, Guo Y, Ma D. Oxalic diamides and tert-butoxide: Two types of ligands enabling practical access to alkyl aryl ethers via Cu-catalyzed coupling reaction, Am. Chem. Soc. (2019) 141, 3541-3549.

He W, Zhang Z, Ma D, A scalable total synthesis of the antitumor agents Et-743 and lurbinectedin, Chem. Int. Ed. (2019) 58, 3972-3976.