Phil Baran

Phil S. Baran (born August 10, 1977) is a synthetic organic chemist and Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute. His work is focused on synthesizing complex natural products, the development of new reaction methodologies within synthetic organic electrochemistry, and the development of new reagents. He holds several patents and has authored over 300 research articles.

Early life and education Phil S. Baran was born in Denville, New Jersey, on August 10, 1977, and grew up in Coral Springs, Florida. He was not a strong academic student in high school, but developed early interests in creative pursuits like role-playing games, computer programming, and Lego building.

Encouraged by his chemistry teacher to experiment after school, Baran quickly channeled his creativity into crafting molecules. In 1995 he began a chemistry degree at New York University, and enthusiastically accepted David Schuster's offer to work in his lab, synthesizing compounds that linked C60 with porphyrins to make artificial photosynthetic systems.

Independent academic career

Baran began his independent career at the Scripps Research Institute in the summer of 2003, and received tenure just three years later. In the 20 years since then, he has supervised over 300 graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, visiting scholars and interns. He is currently the Dr. Richard A. Lerner Endowed Chair at Scripps Research

His work is focused on practicality and simplicity in the total synthesis of organic molecules, eschewing protecting groups, functional group manipulations, and non-essential redox manipulations. Additionally, since the mid 2010's, Baran's lab has focused on developing electrochemical methodologies for use in total synthesis and medicinal chemistry as it allows for more atom economical and environmentally-conscious protocols.

Baran has given hundreds of talks all over the world and is the recipient of dozens of distinguished awards. Among many honors, he has notably earned the Amgen Young Investigator Award (2005), ACS Award in Pure Chemistry (2010), the MacArthur Fellowship (2013), the Mukaiyama Award (2014), the ACS Elias J. Corey Award (2016), the Danisco Science Excellence Medal Award (2022), and the Edison Patent Award (2023).

Industry career and collaborations

In addition to his academic work, Baran also holds many accolades in industry as a scientific entrepreneur, company co-founder, consultant and scientific advisor. He co-founded his first company Sirenas Marine Discovery in 2012 alongside Eduardo Esquenazi and Jake Beverage —a company that is focused on marine-inspired small molecules and pre-clinical leads for cancer, HIV, and infectious diseases. In 2016, he joined forces with fellow Scripps colleagues, Benjamin F. Cravatt and Jin-Quan Yu to co-found Vividion Therapeutics with the goal of identifying small molecules that bind currently undrugged targets via a covalent-first chemoproteomics approach. Vividion was sold to Bayer in 2021 for up to $2 billion ($1.5 billion with an additional $500 million in milestone payments). In the same year, Baran founded Elsie Biotechnologies, an antisense oligonucleotide (ASO)-based company with the goal of discovering therapeutic agents that can achieve desirable medicinal effects not attainable with existing drugs by modulating gene expression of DNA or RNA. Elsie Biotechnologies was sold to GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in 2024 for $50 million. Baran also co-founded and is on the scientific advisory team of Galileo Biosystems, a preclinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapeutic agents for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. He also serves on the scientific advisory board for seven additional companies (Eisai, Kemxtree, Quanta Therapeutics, Inc., Alkermes, Inc, Nutcracker Therapeutics, Inc., Hongene Biotech Corporation, Shouxin, and Sage Therapeutics) and has consulted for over twenty more, including presently at Bristol-Meyers-Squibb, Gilead, and BASF Corporation. Three years after the partnership began, the ElectraSyn was presented at the American Chemical Society annual meeting. In the seven years since, the ElectraSyn and subsequent ElectraSyn 2.0 have been adopted by the synthetic community and utilized towards hundreds of research articles and patents.

Baran strategies for synthesis

1. Ideality In June 2010, Baran authored a paper describing the "Ideal Synthesis" in which he presents a simple and informative definition of "ideality" when comparing molecular syntheses. Building off of ideas discussed by James B. Hendrickson in 1975, "ideality" refers to the concept of making molecules in a way that minimizes concession steps (e.g. adding/removing protecting groups) and maximizes construction steps (i.e. C-C or C-heteroatom bond forming and strategic redox steps). Importantly, this conversation of synthetic ideality is limited to comparisons of syntheses of the same molecule.

2. Two-Phase Synthesis A systematic approach to the synthesis of terpenes was developed and executed in the context of numerous natural products, paralleling natural product formation. By rapidly building up a carbon skeleton followed by oxygenation, shorter synthesis routes are achieved, as exemplified with several Baran syntheses (including 14-Step Synthesis of (+)-Ingenolfrom (+)-3-Carene, Two-Phase Synthesis of (−)-Taxuyunnanine, Two-Phase Synthesis of Taxol, Development of a Concise Synthesis of (-)-Ingenol, among others)

3. Radical Retrosynthesis Radical retrosynthesis adds to the toolbox of synthetic planning by additionally considering intuitive radical disconnections and cross-coupling molecular partners. As methods develop towards more 1e- thinking, this strategic and tactical approach to synthesis will continue to aid in the construction of interesting and valuable natural products and medicinally important compounds. Radical retrosynthesis maximizes convergency by making disconnections that are not wedded to traditional polar bond analysis. The most useful methods from a tactical standpoint in this regard use radical cross coupling.

4. Practical & Scalable Syntheses Implicit in aiming for the ideal synthesis is being able to access useful quantities of a molecule by simple, scalable routes.

Total syntheses

Methods towards synthesis

C-H Functionalization

Olefin Functionalization

Radical Chemistry

Decarboxylative Coupling

Simplifying Oligonucleotide Synthesis

Simplifying Peptide Synthesis CITU—reagent for peptide synthesis and decarboxylative cross-coupling (2017) Thermodynamic peptide macrocyclization (2017) General method for chemoselective, and modular functionalization of serine residues (2020)

Halogenation N–X Anomeric Amides as Electrophilic Halogenation Reagents (2023) Guanidine-based chlorinating reagent, CBMG or "Palau'chlor" (2014) Regioselective bromination of N-oxides (2013)

Strain Release Strain-release amination (2016) Stereospecific strain-release cyclopentylation of amines, alcohols, thiols, carboxylic acids, and other heteroatoms (2017) Enantiocontrolled Azetidine Library Synthesis via Strain Release Functionalization of 1-Azabicyclobutanes (2024)

Electrochemical methods

Misc

Redox-Neutral Radical Cross-Coupling In 2025, the Baran laboratory reported a general platform for "redox-neutral radical cross-coupling" employing sulfonyl hydrazides as stable, crystalline radical precursors.

These reagents, prepared from a variety of feedstocks (including alcohols, carbonyl compounds, amines, and hydrazines), function as dual-purpose agents: they generate alkyl radicals while donating electrons to activate the nickel catalyst. This eliminates the need for external redox additives, photoredox catalysts, electrochemical setups, or pyrophoric organometallic reagents. The reactions operate under Suzuki-like conditions—an inexpensive nickel catalyst, mild base, and gentle heating—with nitrogen gas as the sole byproduct. Using readily accessible enantioenriched sulfonyl hydrazides and an achiral nickel catalyst, the method delivers high levels of stereoretention through an inner-sphere mechanism. This advance enables the enantioselective construction of three-dimensional, sp³-rich molecules used in drug discovery and total synthesis.

Sulfonyl hydrazides are commercially available as reagent feedstock.

Reagents developed

(+/-)-PI Reagent (+/-)-PSI Reagent CBMG or "Palau'chlor" CITU Zinc sulfinate salts Zinc trifluoromethanesulfinate (TFMS), zinc difluoromethanesulfinate (DFMS), zinc trifluoroethanesulfinate (TFES), zinc monofluoromethanesulfinate (MFMS), zinc isopropylsulfinate (IPS), zinc triethyleneglycolsulfinate (TEGS) Sulfonyl hydrazides Listed reagents available through standard chemical suppliers

Publications Phil S. Baran has authored and co-authored approximately 300 research publications with an h-index of 133 and over 60,000 citations. His group's research has been published in journals including Science, Nature, Journal of American Chemical Society (JACS), Angewandte Chemie, and Journal of Organic Chemistry (JOC).

Baran has authored the digital interactive reference text The Portable Chemist's Consultant: A Survival Guide for Discovery, Process, and Radiolabeling and contributed chapters and forewords to several scientific publications. Awards and honors

Highly Cited Researcher, yearly, 2014–2024 Edison Patent Award, 2023 Horizon Discovery Prize, Royal Society of Chemistry, 2022 Danisco Science Excellence Medal Award, 2022 Bristol Chemical Synthesis Syngenta Award, 2021 Janssen Prize for Creativity, 2020 Inhoffen Medal, 2019 Manchot Research Professorship, 2017 Member, The National Academy of Sciences, 2017 Emanuel Merck Lectureship, 2017 Mukaiyama Award, 2014 MacArthur Fellowship, 2013 Royal Society of Chemistry Synthetic Organic Chemistry Award, 2013 ACS San Diego Section Distinguished Scientist Award, 2012 ISHC Katritzky Heterocyclic Chemistry Award, 2011 Thieme–IUPAC Prize in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, 2010 ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, 2010 Sackler Prize, 2009 Novartis Lecturer, 2007–2008 Hirata Gold Medal, 2007 National Fresenius Award, 2007 Pfizer Award for Creativity in Organic Chemistry, 2006 Beckman Young Investigators Award, 2006 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, 2006–2008 BMS Unrestricted "Freedom to Discover" Grant, 2006–2010 NSF Career, 2006–2010 Eli-Lilly Young Investigator Award, 2005–2006 AstraZeneca Excellence in Chemistry Award, 2005 DuPont Young Professor Award, 2005 Roche Excellence in Chemistry Award, 2005 Amgen Young Investigator Award, 2005 Searle Scholar Award, 2005 GlaxoSmithKline Chemistry Scholar Award, 2005–2006 Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry, ACS, 2003 National Institutes of Health Post-Doctoral Fellowship Award, Harvard, 2001–2003 Hoffmann-La Roche Award for Excellence in Organic Chemistry, 2000 Lesly Starr Shelton Award for Excellence in Chemistry Graduate Studies, 2000 National Science Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Award, Scripps, 1998–2001