The Small Molecule Synthesis facility at Duke University was established as a component of the Duke University Center for Chemical Biology in 2003 to provide synthetic organic chemistry capabilities to the entire University community. The Center is located in the Levine Science Research Center, and occupies modern fully hooded synthetic space. The facility has access to all routine synthetic equipment, as well as modern multidimensional NMR (to 800 MHz), various mass spectrometry capabilities (EI & CI double focusing high resolution, GC/MS, LC/MS, electrospray, MALDI) all routine optical spectroscopy, and small molecule diffractometers.

Day-to-day operation of the facility is supervised by Dr. David Gooden, who has nearly 25 years of academic synthetic experience, and has authored a number of papers and patents. Various Ph.D. researchers complete the staffing of the facility. This group of researchers has extensive expertise both in the execution of synthetic routes and in the planning and execution of medicinal chemistry campaigns, including hit-to-lead and preclinical development services. The Facility has also developed relationships with commercial CROs in North America, China and India: Facility staff work with individual researchers to ensure rapid and cost-efficient access to chemistry support for larger projects and/or shorter timelines. Facility staff can also broker access to a broad range of preclinical chemistry support, including ADME, toxicology and formulation support, in both domestic and foreign settings. Our goal is to make such arrangements completely transparent to the researcher, facilitating rapid and efficient translation from bench top discovery to IND/first in man studies.