Peter Wipf Research Group

University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh campus

Can novel synthetic and medicinal-chemistry methods yield small molecules that modulate challenging biological targets? The Wipf Group pursues total synthesis, strain-release and heterocyclic chemistry to access diverse scaffolds for biological testing. Medicinal-chemistry and structure–activity studies optimize small molecules as inhibitors or modulators of protein targets, including p97/VCP and PTP4A3, with the goal of generating probes and therapeutic leads. Collaborative translational projects apply these compounds in cancer, neurodegeneration, and radiation-mitigation studies.