College of Arts and Sciences

Education:

• Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania, 2011-2016
• PhD, University of Alabama, 2011
• BA, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2004

Research Interests:

Research in the Martinez Solorio Group is driven by the total synthesis of complex biologically active natural products which serve as inspirational platforms for the discovery and development of novel catalytic asymmetric reactions, synthetic methods, and reagents. Of paramount importance is the design of synthetic routes that are atom, step and redox economical which lead to more efficient syntheses and reduces chemical waste. This strategy naturally leads to the development of chemical transformations that may currently not exist but would find applications in chemical biology, medicine, and the design of novel functional materials. Our research group aims to improve the understanding of both, the mechanisms of action of natural products in biological systems, and novel chemical reactions via multidisciplinary biological and computational collaborations.

Total synthesis of natural products and methodology development provides an excellent educational opportunity to all post-graduate, graduate and undergraduate students for careers in academia and the pharmaceutical or chemical industry.

Bio:

Dionicio Martinez Solorio was born in Delano and raised in Wasco, California, the agricultural heartland of the Southern Central Valley. He earned a BA in Chemistry from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2004 and a PhD in 2011 from the University of Alabama under the guidance of Michael P. Jennings. His graduate research focused on the total synthesis of natural products. In 2011, Dionicio moved to Philadelphia to pursue post-doctoral studies in the laboratory of Amos B. Smith, III at the University of Pennsylvania where he developed reusable silicon-based reagents for palladium-catalyzed carbon-carbon bond formation. In June 2016, Dionicio joined the faculty at Drexel where he is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry.

Selected Publications:

• Martinez-Solorio, D.; Melillo, B.; Sanchez, L.; Liang, Y.; Lam, E.; Houk, K. N.; Smith, A. B., III “Design, Synthesis, and Validation of an Effective, Reusable Silicon Based Transfer Agent for Room Temperature Pd- Catalyzed Cross Coupling Reactions of Aryl and Heteroaryl Chlorides with Readily Available Aryl Lithium Reagents” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, 138, 1836.
• Martinez-Solorio, D.; Hoye, A. T.; Nguyen, M. H.; Smith, A. B., III “The Design, Synthesis and Validation of Recoverable and Readily Reusable Siloxane Transfer Agents for Pd-Catalyzed Cross-Coupling Reactions.” Org. Lett. 2013, 15, 2454.
• Smith, A. B., III; Hoye, A. T.; Martinez-Solorio, D.; Kim, W.−S.; Tong, R. “Unification of Anion Relay Chemistry (ARC) with the Takeda and Hiyama Cross-Coupling Reactions: Identification of an Effective Silicon-Based Transfer Agent.” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2012, 134, 4533
• Martinez-Solorio, D.; Belmore, K. B.; Jennings, M. P. “Synthesis of the Purported Pochonin J Structure via a Stereoselective Mismatched Oxocarbenium Allylation.” J. Org. Chem. 2011, 76, 3898.
• Martinez-Solorio, D.; Jennings, M. P. “Formal Synthesis of (-)-Neopeltolide Featuring a Stereoselective Oxocarbenium Formation/Reduction Sequence.” J. Org. Chem. 2010,75, 4095.
• Martinez-Solorio, D.; Jennings, M. P. “Convergent Formal Syntheses of (+)-Brussonol and (+)-Abrotanone via an Intramolecular Marson Type Cyclization.” Org. Lett. 2009, 11, 189.
• Martinez-Solorio, D.; Jennings, M. P. “Chemoselective TBS deprotection of Primary Alcohols By Means Of Pyridinium Tribromide (Py•Br₃) in MeOH.” Tetrahedron Lett. 2008, 49, 5175.
• Martinez-Solorio, D.; Jennings, M. P. “The Total Synthesis and Absolute Configuration Determination of (+)-Bruguierol C.” J. Org. Chem. 2007, 72, 6621.