Lu Cheng

Background

About Lu Cheng

I start learning advanced chemistry in high school, which gives me a solid fundamental knowledge of Inorganic, Organic, Analytical chemistry. When I was a freshman, I applied for a University Innovation Program about inorganic material synthesis, advised by Dr. Shi. After finishing that program, I found my interest was not in inorganic but organic synthesis. Then at the end of my sophomore year, I joined Dr. Liao's group, starting doing research in Organic synthesis methodology. During my junior year, I helped Dr. Tianyou Qin finish his project named "Stereoselective Synthesis of Organosulfur Compounds Incorporating N-Aromatic Heterocyclic Motifs and Quaternary Carbon Centers via a Sulfa-Michael Triggered Tandem Reaction" and get a publication on ChemComm. I learn a lot of knowledge about doing synthesis research, such as NMR spectrometry, HPLC, Column Chromatography, and different reactions about the synthesis of substrates. Then, we started a new project of further transformation of the previous products and end up with a publication on Synthesis. While working on the second project, I tried other different new methodology of sulfur addition to electron-deficient or electron-rich alkenes, such as radical promoted, photo-catalyzed. But all of them did not work. In 2015, I joined Dr. Harned's group at Texas Tech University, mainly working on Total Synthesis towards Briarane skeletons, and finished my Ph.D. dissertation, titled "Title Synthesis towards Brianthein W", in 2020. Right after my graduation, I joined Dr, Greenberg's lab at Johns Hopkins University and am working on a joint project about SAMHD1 with Dr. Stivers at Johns Hopkin School of Medicine.