Alexei V. Demchenko

Curators' Professor Emeritus Alexei Demchenko received his training in Moscow, Russia, and did post-doctoral research at the Universities of Birmingham (UK) and  Georgia (US) prior to joining UMSL in 2001. He assumed Emeritus status in 2021.

alexei.demchenko@slu.edu Tel 314-977-2898

Research Interests

• Stereochemical and other mechanistic aspects of chemical glycosylation. Novel glycosylation reactions.
• Regioselective protection of carbohydrate molecules. Design and application of modern protecting groups and strategies to the synthesis of versatile building blocks.
• Metal complexes in synthetic carbohydrate chemistry: direction of the stereoselectivity of glycosylation, regioselectivity, activation, temporary deactivation, switchable stereoselectivity, etc.
• Expeditious strategies for the synthesis of complex oligosaccharides and glycoconjugates: chemoselectivity, and orthogonality of modern glycosyl donors.
• Solid phase and surface chemistry: application to stereoselective glycosylation and rapid assembly of complex oligosaccharides and glycopeptides.
• Combinatorial chemistry and automated synthesis.  New platforms and technologies for automated oligosaccharide synthesis: STICS and HPLC approaches.
• Fully synthetic glycopharmaceuticals based on carbohydrates with potential biological activity (anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, antibacterial, etc).
• Synthetic glycoproteins, glycopeptides, glycopolymers, glycolipids, glycoheterocycles, glycoaminoacids and combinations thereof.  Synthetic glycoconjugate vaccines.
• Human milk oligosaccharides and other food additives and ingredients. Oligosaccharides as prebiotics.

 A video presentation on Dr Demchenko's current research is available here.

 Selected Publications

″Versatile technique to produce a hierarchical design in nanoporous gold,″ P. Sondhi, D. Neupane, J. K. Bhattarai, H. Ali, A. V. Demchenko and K. J. Stine, Journal of Visualized Experiments, 2023, 192, e65065.

″Chemical Synthesis of Human Milk Oligosaccharides: para-Lacto-N-hexaose and para-Lacto-N-neohexaose″, Y. Singh, S. Escopy, M. Shadrick, M. D. Bandara, K. J. Stine, Keith and A. V. Demchenko. Chem. - A European J. 2023, Ahead of print.

″Cooperatively Catalyzed Activation of Thioglycosides That Bypasses Intermediacy of Glycosyl Halides,″ A. Dent, S. Escopy, and V. Demchenko, Chem. A Eur. J. 2023, 29,  e202300873

″Activation of thioglycosides under mild alkylation conditions,″  Forsythe, Nicholas; Liu, Leah; Kashiwagi, Gustavo A.; and V. Demchenko, Carbohydrate Res., 2023, 531, 108872.

″HPLC-Based Automated Synthesis of Glycans in Solution,″ S. Escopy, Y. Singh, Yashapal, K. J. Stine, and A. V. Demchenko, Chem. - A Eur. J. 2022, 28, e202201180

"Development of a Simple and Effective Lipid-A Antagonist Based on Computational Prediction," O. Slater, K. P. Dhami, G. Shrestha, M. Kontoyianni, M. R. Nichols and A. V. Demchenko, ACS Infect. Diseases, 2022, 8, 1171.