The Hanson group has an ongoing interest in the development of novel methods for the design and synthesis of diverse S- and P-heterocycles as potential small molecule drug probes/leads. Utilizing a diversity-oriented synthesis (DOS) approach in combination with a variety metrics (bioinformatics), a number of protocols have been recently developed to access collections of diverse S-heterocycles, namely sultams.

In addition, current studies seek to probe the scope of phosphate-tether technology through its application to the total synthesis of several complex, small molecule targets, and in the hopes of generating a suite of practical synthetic tools, studies will also include the development of a variety of new tether systems for potential use in the synthesis of biologically relevant molecules.