Research Interests
Organic Chemistry — Organic synthesis is the utilization of laboratory skill to bring to fruition the product of our imagination.

Professor Heathcock has long been fascinated with organic reactions, understanding their intimate personalities, and applying them for the construction of intricate structures. He and his students and postdoctoral coworkers typically engaged in 'multistep synthesis.' The synthetic goals were complex, polycyclic natural products, often possessing unusual biological activity. However, the purpose of the research was not just to prepare compounds for biological or pharmacological testing, but rather to learn something new about the creative process of synthesis design. For this reason, the synthetic targets were chosen because it is thought that their novel structures were likely to lead the experimentalist to unusual chemistry. The goal was to use sound mechanistic reasoning to invent multistep syntheses that were sufficiently non-obvious that they would serve as object lessons for other scientists, and thereby contribute to a general elevation of the level of sophistication of the science of large-molecule synthesis.