Using natural products as means of methodological discovery: enol ester epoxides and their diverse reactivity leading to two advanced fragments of bastimolide A and B

In the type of organic chemistry I have been doing, there are actually many similarities between the goals I pursue and cooking. I essentially develop recipes for complex molecules of interest, or for pieces of complex molecules. An example is a complex antimalarial molecule called bastimolide A, which is active against malaria strains that are resistant to current treatments. Such a complex molecule could be compared to a brownie hot fudge sundae, which is made up of several constituents (brownies, hot fudge, and ice cream) that must be made separately and then brought together to make the final product. Now you can have different goals when approaching such an undertaking. If my focus is getting to the hot fudge sundae, then I would be pursuing a total synthesis of a brownie hot fudge sundae. If I focused on certain features which impacted the synthesis of a component (how to make brownies, ice cream, or hot fudge) and seeing variations which might be useful in broader context of cooking (i.e. exploring the effect of different ways of making brownies, or using flavor variations that might transcend the current application), then my work would fall along the lines of methodology. My work was a mix of both. In the pursuit of synthesizing bastimolide A, I stumbled upon several interesting methodologies, utilizing a structure called an enol ester epoxide, for getting to several key components used to assemble our final goal. I then looked to understand this new method for making several pieces of these antimalarial compounds, setting the stage for somebody else to be able to assemble the final product.