Field: Chemistry

Dr. Alexandre Drouin was born in Arthabasca, Quebec. He earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in organic chemistry at the Université de Sherbrooke under the supervision of Dr. Jean Lessard and Dr. Claude Spino. His research was aimed at the development of the rearrangement of N-heterosubstituted lactams. He then moved to the Université catholique de Louvain, in Belgium, as an ARC-FNRS postdoctoral research fellow, where he worked on the total synthesis of polycavernoside A and the development of a new methodology for the hydroamination of unactivated alkenes, under the supervision of Dr. István Markó. After two years in Belgium, he came back in Sherbrooke where he joined Tranzyme Pharma as an NSERC postdoctoral scientist and worked on the development of new drugs for gastrointestinal diseases. He finally joined Bishop’s University in September 2012 as an assistant professor where he teaches all organic chemistry courses and labs.

Alexandre is also involved in research. He seeks to develop efficient and selective chemical transformations that will be applicable to the synthesis of complex natural products and motifs of pharmaceutical importance. He has a particular interest in cascades of pericyclic reactions as well as in enantioselective carbon-carbon bond formation that can be applied to the total synthesis of biologically active targets. These goals are currently split in 2 distinct research projects: 1- Combination of organocatalysis and pericyclic reactions for the synthesis of useful building blocks. 2- Development of a new catalytic method for the enantioselective alkylation of enolates.