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September 2022

•Tae, Joey, Amy, Alexandra and Min's manuscript describing the syntheses of draccocephalone A and dracocequinones A and B is published in Angewandte Chemie.  Congratulations!
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•Noah Defends his thesis and prepares for his postdoctoral position with Hosea Nelson at Caltech.  Congratulations Noah!  The W6 will miss both you and Bea!

•John and Jill travel to the northeast and on a whim John e-mails former W6 members to see if they would be interested in getting together....the yield was quantitative.   John realizes what a privilege it has been being associated with such a fantastic group of students.  
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August 2022

•Ricky Defends his thesis and departs Waco to begin his new position at FMC.  Good luck Ricky and Claire (former W6 Bocce Champs)  we will miss you both!

•John joins Sarah Reisman and Peter Wipf hosting the third Organic Syntheses, Inc. Workshop for Young Investigators, including Academic Grandson Raul Navarro!

•Amy returns and gets her hood at graduation and graces John with her artistic talents!  Thanks Amy!
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June 2022

•Bea and Noah are Married!  Many of the W6 attend! Awesome time.  Congratulations Bea and Noah!!!!

•The Wood Group Bids Farewell to Min Jung and Danny Graeff (a.k.a. Danny Hydride) as they head to Medical School and Graduate School (Rice), respectively.

•Amy successfully defends her thesis!  Congratulations Dr. Jackson!  The W6 will miss you!

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May 2022 


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•Chemistry and Biochemistry holds the first Faculty and Staff Banquet.  Thanks to Barbara, Chris, Emily, Entralisa, and Tammy for organizing!

•Amy, Jimmy,  Sasha, and Kyle's  work is published in Tetrahedron Letters!

•John serves as a commencement Marshal and  gets to march with Bea.  Thank you for your future service in the Army!

•W6 undergraduate researchers,  Danny Graeff and Min Jung , graduate and are clearly sad about it.

•Jimmy and Joey pass their candidacy exams.
•Trey Passes his Precandidacy Exam!

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Nice Work Wood Group!

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​April 2022

•Congratulations to Amy Jackson and Noah Sims for receiving research productivity awards!  Way to go Amy and Noah!



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February 2022

•Chemistry and Biochemistry hosts a virtual Graduate Recruiting Weekend.  




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January 2022

•Baylor Celebrates Achieving R1 Status!




December 2021

•Group Holiday Dinner and Gift Exchange!
•John preps goodies for the Staff.
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November 2021

•The W6 captures the coveted Golden Erlenmeyer Trophy at the first Annual CBC volleyball tournament!
•Jack and Anna meet Chip and Joanna!
•Team Raistrickindole A comes through and gets shirts!  Nice work Amy and Tae!
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October 2021

•John makes his first seminar trip in nearly two years!  Thanks Rich Taylor and the faculty and students at Notre Dame.  It was an honor being the Jeremiah Freeman Lecturer!
September 2021

•The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry thanks Pat Farmer for his exceptional leadership as chair!  An impossible act to follow for John!
August 2021

•John co-hosts the 2021 Organic Syntheses Workshop with Sarah Reisman and Peter Wipf in Steamboat!  
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July 2021

•The Wood Group welcomes prospective students Wes Bonnet and Trevor Olson.
•John takes over as Department Chair.
•John and Jill celebrate their 34th anniversary.
June 2021

John finishes his Millennium ride on the Peloton with Matt Wilpers in a 45 Minute Power Zone Endurance  class.
May 2021

•Daniel teaches John how to snag bass...at the Romo's beautiful lake-front home in Waco!
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April 2021

•Chris and Alexandra's collaborative efforts with the Shaw group are published in Angewandte!
March 2021

•The first annual Wood Group Pizza Party produces 24 Neapolitan delights!
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February 2021

•The Ooni Pizza Oven (thanks Cory!) gets a custom made home and makes it to Texas...John practices for and plans a group pizza party.
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January 2021

•Ricky's paper on Plagiochianin appears in Organic Letters.  Nice work Ricky!
December 2020

•John makes candy and cookies for the staff and gets to spend some time in the workshop making step stools for Daniel, Liela, Neil, and Brian.
•Group gathers for the holidays 
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November 2020

•The Wood Group takes time out to have an instructional session on the recognition of opioid overdoses and use of NARCAN.
October 2020

•Kevin and Ke's manuscript describing the preparation of novel analogs of staurosporine is published in ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters!
September 2020  

•The wood group welcomes our new postdoctoral fellow Dr. Sasha Sundstrom from Jeremy May's group at the University of Houston.
• We are also honored to be hosting a number of rotating first year students!   Welcome to Baylor Joey, Arvin, Jimmy, and Adam!
​•New W6 attire arrives.  Yet another Amy Jackson Design!   Nice work Amy!
•Keita, Kyle, Quentin, and Josh's  longeracemine work makes it to print in Chemical Science.  Nice work!
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August 2020

•Organic Syntheses Vol. 96 arrives.  One day we will all just be names on a shelf.  At least its nice to know you will be in good company!  
​•Jack Wood (W6 Instructional Videographer) heads to Baylor shortly after a COVID delayed High School Graduation!   Welcome to Baylor Jack!
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June-July 2020 

•Research resumes but not quite to 100%.  
•The W6 welcomes incoming graduate students Katie Bortz (Northern Michigan), Trey Henderson (UT Austin), and Matthew Parris (University of South Carolina Upstate) for summer research!    
•We bid farewell to Dr. Kyle Lambert who begins his independent career at Old Dominion University!  Good luck Kyle!!  Check out the clock Kyle made for me for a parting gift.   Yes, those structure are burned into the wood by hand.  Awesome!
April 2020

The phyllantidine story is published in Angewandte Chemie.  Great to publish with my former colleague Ken Wiberg.    Nice work Kyle, Josh, Lin, Amy and Sam!
March 2020

Students leave for Spring Break and don't return.  John gives Organic Chemistry II lectures to a camera in an empty classroom.   Research slows to 50%.
January 2020

John is prescribed Lisinopril, decides to get serious about cardio, and discovers a passion for power zone training on his new Peloton!
December 2019

•John helps his son Cory make a jewelry box for Kelly.  Fashioned after a Shaker box purchased for Jill, this one is made from bubinga, ebony, and quilted maple!

•The W6 formally welcomes new graduate students Tae Hwang (UG research with David Sarlah, UIUC) and Quentin Savage (UG research with Genessa Smith UT Martin)!  
November 2019

John stops in to check on former graduate student Dr. Josh Cox who is currently in the Smith group at Penn, checks out his old lab, and gets to visit with one of his favorite former professors, Madeleine Joullié!
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September  2019
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​​‣John accompanies ace reporter Harry Stoltz to SpaceX's Boca Chica site to hear CEO Elon Musk outline the design of and future plans for their MK-1 Starship!  
Read Harry's article  here.
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​‣ Tae Hwang from the Sarlah Group at UIUC begins his rotation in the W6.  Welcome Tae!
August 2019

‣ W6  and M6 (Martin Group) Celebrate the graduation of Drs. Yruegas and Cox!
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July 2019

​‣ W6  and M6 (Martin Group) Celebrate the successful defenses of Dr. Sam Yruegas  and Dr. Josh Cox and wish them well in their new positions at Princeton and U. Penn.   Congrats S snd J! 
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‣ W6 welcomes Baylor Honors Undergraduate Min Jung to the Group.   Welcome Min!
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March 2022

•Chemistry and Biochemistry host Graduate Recruiting  Weekend....In Person at Last!



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June 2019

‣ W6 welcomes Quentin Savage from the laboratories of Genessa Smith (#W6Alum) at the University of Tennessee, Martin.  
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May 2019

 ‣ Check out our just accepted article in JACS, Total Synthesis of Caesalpinnone A and Caesalpinflavan B:  Evolution of a Concise Strategy.  Congratulations to Dr. Jacob Timmerman and first year student Noah Sims!

‣ Baylor Welcomed 206 undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students to Waco for TexSyn IV.  A great day of 8 plenary talks, 8 speed-talks from graduate students,  and 87 poster presentations!  An awesome display of synthetic chemistry ongoing in Texas.

‣ Congratulations to John being named among seven tenured  "Outstanding Baylor Faculty for 2018-2019".

‣ Congratulations to Alexandra (first in her biochemistry class) Beard as she graduates from Baylor and moves on to do graduate studies in chemistry at Caltech!

‣ Congratulations to Lauren Markham as she graduates  from Baylor and moves on to do graduate studies in chemistry at Dartmouth!

April 2019

‣ W6 wishes good luck to Dr. Yu-Wen Huang as he departs to take a position on the faculty at the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan.  Congratulations on this fantastic position Yu-Wen!

‣ W6 wishes good luck to Dr. Jacob Timmerman as he departs to the process research department at Genentech.  Congratulations on landing your dream job Jacob!

February 2019 

 ‣ Check out the article on our lab entitled "Good Chemistry" in the winter issue of the Baylor Magazine.

January 2019

‣ W6 welcomes new first-year graduate students Amy Jackson, Noah Sims, and Lin Liu!

 ‣ Check out our recently accepted article in Tetrahedron, Synthetic studies towards the penicisulfurinols: synthesis of an advanced spirocyclic diketopiperazine intermediate. Congratulations to Kevin Gayler and Dr. Kyle Lambert!

December 2018

 ‣ Check out our new article in JACS, Total Synthesis of Herquline B and C! Congratulations  to Josh Cox and Dr. Aoi Kimishima!

November 2018

 ‣ Congratulations to  Dr. Mina Nahkla for successfully defending his thesis! We wish him the best as he starts a post-doctoral fellowship in the Kishi Lab at Harvard!

September 2018

 ​‣ Kyle Lambert is awarded the Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA postdoctoral fellowship from the NIH. Congrats Kyle!

‣ W6 bids farewell to Keita Komine! We wish him the best with his new assistant professor position at Nagasaki University in the Hatekeyama/Ishihara group!

August 2018

​ ‣ Mina Nakhla travels to Sendai, Japan to give a talk at Tohoku University chemistry summer school!

​ ‣ Check out our new article in Tetrahedron, Synthetic studies toward longeracemine: The intramolecular [4+2] cycloaddition of 3H-pyrroles, congratulations  to Josh Cox!

July 2018

‣ Mina Nakhla travels to Bloomington, Indiana to give a talk at the graduate research symposium!

‣ Kyle Lambert travels to Easton, Massachusetts to present a poster at Stonehill College for the Organic Reactions and Processes Gordon conference!


June 2018

​ ‣ Check out our new article in Organic Letters, Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Hippolachnin A Analogues, congratulations  to Dr. Jacob Timmerman!

‣ Jacob Timmerman travels to Newport, Rhode Island to present a poster at Salve Regina University for the Heterocycles Gordon conference!
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May 2018

‣W6 bids farewell to Aoi Kimishima! We wish him the best with his new assistant professor position at the Kitasato Institute in the Sunazuka Group!

 ‣Check out our new article in ACIE,  Total Synthesis of (+)-and(
±)-Hosieine A , congratulations  to Yu-Wen Huang and Ke Kong!

April 2018
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    ‣ W6 welcomes first year Ricky Jackson to the group!

February 2018 

‣ Check out our new article in Tetrahedron, Total synthesis of cyclopiamide A and speradine E, congratulations  to Mina Nakhla, Kendall Weeks, and Mauricio Navarro Villalobos!

December 2017

  ‣ Check out our new article in ACIE, Total Synthesis of (±)-Phomoidride D, congratulations  to Joyce Leung,  Aaron Bedermann,  Jón Njardarson, David Spiegel, Graham Murphy, Naoto Hama, Barry Twenter, Ping Dong, Tatsuya Shirahata, Ivar  McDonald, Munenori Inoue, Nobuaki Taniguchi, Travis McMahon, Christopher Schneider,  Nancy Tao,  and Brian Stoltz!

  ‣ Check out our new article in JACS, Total Synthesis of (±)-Aspergilline A , congratulations Mina!

  ‣ Congratulations to  Dr. Heemal Dhanjee for successfully defending his thesis! Good luck with your postdoc in the Pentelute and Buchwald Groups!

   ‣ W6 bids farewell to Miyu Furuta! We wish her the best with her new assistant professor position in the Tokuyama group!

   ‣ W6 bids farewell to Murray Wan! good luck at your new job at Merck!

​November 2017

  ‣ Check out our feature in C&EN News "Tetrapetalones yield to total synthesis at last"

October 2017
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  ‣ Check out our new just accepted article in JACS, Total Syntheses of (+) and (-) - Tetrapetalones A and C! Congratulations to Jennifer Howell, Matthew Haley, Travis McMahon, Jonas Buergler, Heemal Dhanjee, Yutaka Kobayashi and Koichi Fujiwara!  Go team tetrapetalone!

September 2017
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  ‣ W6 bids farewell to Post-Doctoral Scholar Joyce Leung! We wish her the best of luck at her new position at Boehringer Ingelheim

  ‣ W6 welcomes back Visiting Professor Dr. Mauricio Navarro Villalobos from Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila, Mexico
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​July 2017

  ‣ W6 welcomes new Post-Doctoral Scholars Kyle Lambert from Professor William Bailey's laboratory at the University of Connecticut and Jacob Timmerman from Professor Ross Widenhoefer's laboratory at Duke University

​    ‣ W6 bids farewell to Post-Doctoral Scholar Bryon Anderson!  We wish him the best of luck at his new position at Alcami!

April 2017
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    ‣ W6 Welcomes Post-Doctoral JSPS Fellow Keita Komine from Professor Jun Ishihara's laboratory at Nagasaki University

December 2016

    ‣ W6 welcomes new graduate students Murray Wan, Christopher Cook, and Lee Mains to the group!

August 2016

    ‣ W6 welcomes Post-Doctoral Scholar Yu-Wen Huang from the Frontier Group at The University of Rochester!

July 2016

    ‣ Congratulations to Dr. Monica McCallum on the successful defense of her thesis!  We wish her the best of luck at her new position with Professor Emily Balskus at Harvard!

June 2016

    ‣ Welcome to REU student Kendall Weeks from the Johnson Lab at UNC, Chapel Hill!

April 2016

    ‣ W6 Welcomes Post-Doctoral JSPS Fellow Miyu Furuta from Professor Takeshi Sugai's laboratory at Keio University!

March 2016

    ‣ Check out our latest on studies toward the citrinadins and our efforts toward the tetrapetalones!

    ‣ W6 bids farewell to Post-Doctoral Scholars Yasuhiro Shimamoto and Yutaka Kobayashi!  Good luck on your future positions!

February 2016

    ‣ Monica's collaborative total synthesis of hippolachnin A is now available on JACS!!!  Many thanks to Prof. Kevin Brown and Christopher Rasik (Brown Lab, Indiana University)!!!

January 2016

    ‣ W6 welcomes new first year graduate student Kevin Gayler!

November 2015

    ‣ Check out our publication on "Chemoselective Intramolecular Carbonyl Ylide Formation through Electronically Differentiated Malonate Diesters"

August 2015

    ‣ W6 Welcomes Post-Doctoral Scholar Dr. Bryon Anderson from the Livinghouse Group!


June 2015


    ‣ Heemal Dhanjee travels to Germany to present a poster at the 16th Tetrahedron Symposium in Berlin

    ‣ Monica McCallum travels to New Hampshire to present a poster at the High Throughput Chemistry & Chemical Biology Gordon Research Conference at Colby-Sawyer College


April 2015 

    ‣ Former graduate student Dr. Travis McMahon starts at his new position at DuPont! 

    ‣ Congratulations to Michael Tudesco on his new position as a process chemist at AbbVie, Chicago!

    ‣ W6 Welcomes Post-Doctoral scholar Dr. Koichi Fujiwara from the Doi Laboratory!



March 2015

    ‣ Monica McCallum, Joyce Leung, and Heemal Dhanjee travel to ACS Denver to present posters!

    ‣ W6 welcomes first year graduate student Josh Cox to the group!



December 2014

    ‣ W6 congratulates Dr. Aaron Bedermann on the successful defense of his thesis!  We wish him the best of luck at his new position with Professor Timothy F. Jamison at MIT!

    ‣ Congratulations to Heemal Dhanjee on successfully passing his 3rd year proposal seminar!

November 2014

    ‣ W6 welcomes first year graduate student Mina Nakhla to the group!

September 2014

    ‣ Baylor's latest upgrades include:  A Bruker 600 MHz CryoProbe NMR, a 300 MHz NMR, and, only 10 paces from the Wood Group doors, a 400 MHz NMR with automated sample changer!


July 2014
 
    ‣ Congratulations to Michael Tudesco on his new position at Genentech!


June 2014
 
    ‣ Aaron Bedermann and Monica McCallum travel to London to present posters at the 15th Tetrahedron Symposium!

    ‣ W6 Congratulates Heemal Dhanjee for passing his second year oral exams!


May 2014

     ‣ W6 welcomes Post-Doctoral scholar Dr. Yasuhiro Shimamoto from the Murakami Lab


February 2014

      ‣ Check out the latest on Synthetic studies towards the citrinadins!

      ‣ W6 welcomes Post-Doctoral scholar Dr. Joyce Leung from the Krische Group


December 2013

      ‣ Happy Holidays from the Wood Group!


November 2013

     ‣ Aaron Bedermann, Monica McCallum, and Heemal Dhanjee present posters at the Southwest Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society! 


September 2013

     ‣ W6 welcomes Post-Doctoral scholar Dr. Yutaka Kobayashi from Professor Toshiaki Sunazuka's group at Kitasato University, Japan!

     ‣ The Wood Group moves to Baylor University!


August 2013

     ‣ Congratulations to Dr. Travis McMahon on his Post-Doctoral position in Professor Neil Garg's Group at UCLA!

     ‣ Congratulations to Dr. John Enquist on his new position at Gilead!

     ‣ The Wood Group packs it up at Colorado State University.

     ‣ W6 bids farewell to Dr.  Jonas Bürgler!  We wish him luck with his new position as a process chemist at Carbogen-Amcis!


July 2013

     ‣ The Wood Group attends OMCOS 17 in Fort Collins, CO.

     ‣ Aaron Bedermann attends the American Chemical Society Graduate Research Symposium at the University of Delaware, Newark.

     ‣ Check out our publication of “An Enantioselective Total Synthesis and Stereochemical Revision of (+)-Citrinadin B” back-to-back with the Martin Group’s “Enantioselective Total Synthesis of (–)-Citrinadin A and Revision of Its Stereochemical Structure”.

     ‣ W6 congratulates Dr. Travis McMahon on the successful defense of his thesis!


June 2013

     ‣ Travis McMahon presents a poster at the Gordon Research Conference on Heterocyclic Compounds in Newport, RI.

     ‣ Aaron Bedermann and Monica McCallum present posters at the National Organic Chemistry Symposium at the University of Washington.


March 2013

     ‣ Congratulations Monica for receiving a NSF GRFP award!


January 2013

     ‣ W6 welcomes new graduate students Heemal Dhanjee and Mike Tudesco to the group!

     ‣ Check out our report on our progress Toward the Synthesis of Phomoidride D!


December 2012

     ‣ Congratulations to Dr. Taka Matsumaru!  We wish him all the best in his new position as Assistant Professor at Hokkaido University in Japan!


November 2012

     ‣ W6 bids farewell to Dr. Naoto Hama!  We wish him luck with his new position as Assistant Professor at Tohoku University in Japan!


October 2012

     ‣ Aaron Bedermann and Travis McMahon present posters at the 2nd Meyers Symposium at CSU.  Monica McCallum presents a research talk.  


September 2012

     ‣ W6 bids farewell to visiting scholar Jun Yamamoto.  We wish him luck in his future endeavors! 


August 2012

     ‣ Check out our publications in this week’s ASAPs!
  1. •  The First Synthesis of an Epidiselenodiketopiperazine

    •  Total Syntheses of (±)-Securinine and (±)-Allosecurinine

    • Wharton-Fragmentation-Based Approach to the Carbocyclic Core of the Phomoidrides​

July 2012

     ‣ Travis McMahon presents a poster at the DOC Graduate Research Symposiumat UC Boulder.  Nice work Travis!

     ‣ W6 welcomes visiting scholar Jun Yamamoto from the University of Tokushima, Japan.

     ‣ W6 congratulates Dr. Jennifer Howell on the successful defense of her thesis!


June 2012

     ‣ W6 welcomes summer REU undergraduate researcher Zach to the group.


May 2012

     ‣ W6 congratulates Dr. Genessa Smith on the successful defense of her thesis! We wish her the best of luck at her new post as an Assistant Professor at University of Tennessee, Martin.