Recent education:
2018-present: Postdoctoral research at the University of British Columbia.
2015-2017: Postdoctoral research at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (Germany) under the supervision of Dr Alexander Titz.
2012-2015: PhD in Chemistry at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) under the supervision of Dr Jonathan Sperry.
Research Interests:
My interest in synthetic chemistry began with natural products and has since expanded to include the synthesis of simplified natural product mimics. My PhD research was focused on the synthesis of the alkaloid natural product yuremamine, using both C-H activation methodology and biomimetic synthesis. This work enabled access to large quantities of the natural product for biological testing and also revealed that the natural product possessed a profoundly different structure to that initially proposed.
Postdoctoral research in both Germany and Canada has focused on complex naturally occurring sugar-containing compounds. I have carried out the synthesis of core-fucosylated N-glycan mimics in Germany and am currently working towards the synthesis of structurally simplified montbretin A mimics as a potential treatment for type 2 diabetes.
Publications:
Calvert, M. B.; Jumde, V. R.; Titz, A. Pathoblockers or antivirulence drugs as a new option for the treatment of bacterial infections. Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry, 2018, 14, 2607–2617.
Hottmann, I.; Mayer, V. M. T.; Tomek, M. B.; Friedrich, V.; Calvert, M., B.; Titz, A.; Schäffer, C.; Mayer, C. N-Acetylmuramic Acid (MurNAc) Auxotrophy of the Oral Pathogen Tannerella forsythia: Characterization of a MurNAc Kinase and Analysis of Its Role in Cell Wall Metabolism. Frontiers in Microbiology, 2018, 9. DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2018.00019.
Calvert, M. B.; Mayer, C.; Titz A. An efficient synthesis of 1,6-anhydro-N-acetylmuramic acid from N-acetylglucosamine. Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry, 2017, 13, 2631–2636.
Blair, L. M.; Calvert, M. B.; Sperry, J., Flavoalkaloids – Isolation, biological activity, and total synthesis. In The Alkaloids: Chemistry and Biology, 2017, 77, 85-115.
Calvert, M. B.; Sperry, J., Synthetic studies towards putative yuremamine using an iterative C(sp3)–H arylation strategy. Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, 2016, 14, 5728-5743.
Calvert, M. B.; Sperry, J., Bioinspired total synthesis and structural revision of yuremamine, an alkaloid from the entheogenic plant Mimosa tenuiflora. Chemical Communications, 2015, 51, 6202-6205.