Professor Tim Cernak from the University of Michigan will discuss his use of SYNTHIA^TM to explore the interface of chemical synthesis and data science. The data-processing power of modern retrosynthetic software enables chemists to ask new research questions, and the application of SYNTHIA^TM searching for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals in a data-rich environment will be described. He will highlight examples of crowd-sourcing and team-based searching in SYNTHIA^TM to overcome synthetic challenges and describe the merger of automatically planned retrosynthesis routes with modern tools for high-throughput experimentation.

In addition, Professor Richmond Sarpong from the University of California, Berkeley will ask the question, ‘Where does one begin to identify strategies for the synthesis of a complex molecule?’ He will discuss a process for leveraging computer-assisted synthesis designs along with human-generated routes using an illustrative example of this interplay in the context of a sesquiterpene natural product synthesis.

Finally, Ewa Gajewska, an expert on the software and a Chemistry Specialist on the SYNTHIA^TM development team will describe how the use of tactical combinations, complexifying-simplifying sequences of reaction, within SYNTHIA^TM improved the synthesis of a natural product – Imperanene – compared to previously reported routes.