Much of the recent research of Dr. Bloomer and his students has been concerned with the general area of polycyclic chemistry and in particular, studies related to analogs of doxorubicin 1 and mitoxantrone 2, both of which are clinically useful anticancer drugs. The juglones research was also extended to providea series of naturally occurring anthraquinones including rhein, aloe-emodin, parietinic acid, emodic acid, fallacinol, citreorosein, and pachybasic acid. The resultant tautomeric dihydroxynaphthoquinone was now reactive in the other ring, allowing polycyclic systems to be built out in two directions from a bicyclic precursor with controllable regiochemistry. Some of our mitoxantrone analog material has been accepted recently by the National Cancer Institute for testing.
Current studies are concerned with chiral syntheses of heterocyclic compounds.
Some specific target molecules are glycosidase inhibitors, which have a number of important therapeutic properties for a variety of diseases, AIDS included. One example of this class of compound is castanospermine 3. Chiral synthetic approaches to 3 are being developed from simple aminoacid starting materials. James L. Bloomer, Kenneth W. Stagliano, and Joseph A. Gazzillo. James L. Bloomer and Kenneth W. Stagliano.