GO TOP

Field

Molecular and Chemical Life Science :
Chemical Biology

Research

Professor SASAKI Makoto
Campus Katahira campus
Laboratory Biostructural Chemistry
Tel +81-22-217-6212
E-mail makoto.sasaki.a7@tohoku.ac.jp
Website http://sasaki-umehara-lab.moon.bindcloud.jp/

My research interests include the total synthesis of structurally complex natural marine products and the design of biologically important molecules.

Career

Makoto Sasaki graduated from the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, the University of Tokyo in 1984. He received M.Sc. (1986) and Ph.D. (1989) degrees in Chemistry from the School of Science, the University of Tokyo. After working as a researcher at the National Chemical Laboratory for Industry, he joined the Faculty of Science, the University of Tokyo as an Assistant Professor in the research group of Professor Kazuo Tachibana in 1991 and then was promoted to a Lecturer in 1999. In 2001, he moved to the Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University as an Associate Professor and promoted to Professor in 2002. He received Inoue Research Award for Young Scientists 1991, the Chemical Society of Japan Award for Creative Work for 2005, and SSOCJ Daiichi-Sankyo Award for Medicinal Organic Chemistry 2013.

Selected Publications
  1. Total synthesis and complete structural assignment of gambieric acid A, a polycyclic ether marine natural product. Chem. Rec. 2014, 14, 678.
  2. Total synthesis and structure revision of didemnaketal B. Chem. Eur. J. 2014, 19, 1848.
  3. Total synthesis and biological evaluation of (+)-gambieric acid A and its analogues. Chem. Eur. J. 2013, 19, 5276.
  4. Total synthesis and complete stereostructure of gambieric acid A. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2012, 134, 11984.
  5. Design and synthesis of skeletal analogues of gambierol: Attenuation of amyloid-b and tau pathology with voltage-gated potassium channel and N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor implications. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2012, 134, 7467.
  6. Total synthesis of (–)-brevenal: A streamlined strategy for practical synthesis of polycyclic ethers. Chem. Eur. J. 2011, 17, 13754.
  7. A concise total synthesis of (+)-neopeltolide. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2010, 49, 3041.
  8. Total synthesis of (+)-neopeltolide. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2008, 47, 4737.
  9. Convergent strategies for the total synthesis of polycyclic ether marine metabolites. Nat. Prod. Rep. 2008, 25, 401.
  10. Rapid and efficient total synthesis of dysiherbaine and analogues to explore structure-activity relationships. J. Org. Chem. 2008, 73, 264.
  11. Development and application of convergent strategy for total synthesis of polycyclic ether natural products. Bull. Chem. Soc. Jpn. (Award Article), 2007, 80, 856. etc.
Activities in Academic Societies

The Chemical Society of Japan; American Chemical Society; Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Agrochemistry; the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan

Teaching

Chemistry C (Faculty of Agriculture 1st year), Chemistry of Bioactive Compounds (Faculty of Agriculture 3rd year), Advanced Lecture on Biostructural Chemistry, Advanced Lecture on Biomolecular Sciences (gradate school)

Recent Activities

Currents research programs in our group include: design and synthesis of molecular probes based on a simplified analogue of gambierol to identify the binding site on the voltage-gated potassium channels; total synthesis of goniodomin A, an actin-targeting polyether macrolide; total synthesis of amphidinolide N, an extremely potent cytotoxic macrolide; and total synthesis and stereochemical assignment of amphirionin-5, which exhibits cell proliferation-promoting activity.