| Assoc Prof Tan Choon Hong
Associate Chair (Outreach & Undergraduate Admissions), School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences
Division of Chemistry & Biological Chemistry
School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences
College of Science
Email: CHOONHONG@ntu.edu.sg
Phone: (+65)63168761
Office: SPMS-CBC-04-18 |
| Education |
- PhD University of Cambridge 1999
- BSc(Hons) National University of Singapore 1995
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| Biography |
Choon Hong was born in May 1971 in Singapore. He received his BSc(Hons) First Class from the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 1995 and also top his class that year. He obtained financial support from Trinity College (Cambridge), the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust and Tan Kah Kee Postgraduate Scholarship to pursue his PhD and he graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1999. Following that, he carried out two years postdoctoral training at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University. Subsequently, he worked as a Research Associate at Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School for another year before joined the Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore as Assistant Professor in 2003. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2010. He joined Nanyang Technological University in 2012.
As a result of this successful work in NUS, he has published close to 70 papers and has three patent applications. Most of these publication (>80%) are in journal of IF>5. He has been invited to delivered lectures in many academic institutions including ETH Zurich, University of Oxford, University of Tokyo, University of Wisconsin at Madison and University of Cambridge. He was also asked to deliver lectures at pharmaceutical companies such as Wyeth Research, S*Bio Pte Ltd and GSK. Recently he was asked to deliver a keynote lecture at The 5th International Conference on Cutting-Edge Organic Chemistry in Asia (ICCEOCA-5). He has gained international recognition by winning the Asian Core Lectureship Awards from four countries: Hong Kong (2009), Japan (2009), China (2010) and Korea (2010). He has also won the UK Singapore Partners-In-Science Collaboration Development Awards in 2008 from the British High Commission in Singapore. He also won the Young Chemist Award (2009) and the Young Scientist Award (2009). Recently, he won the prestigious GSK-SNIC Organic Chemistry Award (2011). The evaluation committee consists of prominent chemists such as Prof KC Nicolaou (Scripps), Prof Tamio Hayashi (Kyoto), Prof TP Loh (NTU) and Prof Henry Wong (CUHK). |
| Research Interests |
Practical Asymmetric Synthesis: Chiral Brønsted Base Catalyst and Chiral Phase Transfer Catalyst
Practical asymmetric catalysis is of growing importance to our modern society. Enantiomers can have very different biological activity. In the 1960s, the tragic administration of a racemic mixture of thalidomide to pregnant women, a drug prescribed to reduce the symptoms of morning sickness, results in severe birth defects. One form of the drug is the sedative but the wrong enantiomer is strongly tetragenic. In 1992, US Food and Drug Administration, USA issued a guideline to encourage the use of single enantiomer drugs. In 2000, the worldwide sales of single enantiomer compounds/drugs reached US$123 billion. The reason why not all drugs are prepared in the enantiomerically pure form is that the technology required for cheap, simple and effective chemical synthesis of the chiral form of drugs is still not fully established. The development of enantiomerically pure compounds not only impact medicines but is of growing importance to other important segments of our modern society including the healthcare of animals, crop protection, food and beverage industries, materials and fragrance industries.
Green and Environmentally Friendly Chemistry
Green chemistry is defined as the design of chemical processes that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances. Green chemistry applies across the life cycle of a chemical product, including its design, manufacture and use. Combining technological progress with the safeguard of the environment is one of the challenges of the new millennium. It is recognized that the science of chemistry is fundamental to addressing the problems facing the environment and attainment of sustainable development. Green chemistry technologies provide a number of benefits, including reduced waste hence eliminating costly end-of-the-pipe treatments, safer products and reduced use of energy and resources. The success of environmentally friendly reactions, products, and processes will improve the competitiveness within the chemical industry, as well as meet the needs of the environment and the people. |
| Research Grant |
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| Current Projects |
- Practical Approaches for the Preparation of Chiral Bioactive Compounds
| Selected Publications | - Y. C. Teo, Y. Pan, C.-H. Tan. (2013). Organic Dye Photocatalyzed In-situ Generation of Acylnitroso for Ene Reactions. ChemCatChem, 5(1), 235–240.
- W. Zhang, D. Tan, R. Lee, G. Tong, W. Chen, K.-W. Huang, C.-H. Tan, Z. Jiang. (2012). Highly Enantio- and Diastereoselective Synthesis of γ,γ-Butenolide-Substituted α- and β-Stereogenic Amides via Direct Vinylogous Michael Addition. Angewandte Chemie (International Edition)
, 51(40), 10069–10073.
- S. Wang, C. T. Nai, X.-F. Jiang, Y. Pan, C.-H. Tan, M. Nesladek, Q.-H. Xu, K. P. Loh. (2012). Graphene Oxide-Polythiophene Hybrid with Broadband Absorption and Photocatalytic Properties. Journal of Physical Chemistry, 3(17), 2332−2336.
- Y. Yang, F. Moinodeen, W. Chin, T. Ma, Z. Jiang, C.-H. Tan. (2012). Phase Transfer Pentanidium-Catalyzed Enantioselective -Hydroxylation of Oxindole with Molecular Oxygen. Organic Letters, 14(18), 4762–4765.
- B. Cho, C.-H. Tan, M.-W. Wah. (2012). Origin of Asymmetric Induction in Bicyclic Guanidine-Catalyzed Thio-Michael Reaction: A Bifunctional Mode of Lewis Acid-Brønsted Acid Activation. Journal of Organic Chemistry, 77(15), 6553−6562.
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