Barrett was educated at Heles Grammar School in Exeter. He attended Imperial College, London. He carried out his Ph.D. working under the direction of Sir Derek Barton, Nobel Laureate
Career and Research
Barrett was appointed lecturer in organic chemistry at IC and senior lecturer. In 1983, he was appointed full professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and in 1990 moved to Colorado State University. After ten years research in the US, he returned to IC as Glaxo Professor of Organic Chemistry, Director of the Wolfson Centre for Organic Chemistry in Medical Science and Head of the Organic Section. He was appointed the Sir Derek Barton Professor of Synthetic Chemistry in 1999. Barrett has invented many reactions including novel glycosidations, atom-economic aromatic substitution reactions, metal-catalyzed oxidations and hydroaminations, reactions using ROMP-gel supported reagents and multi-component benzyne coupling reactions. He has contributed extensively to the synthesis of β-lactams using alkenyl anions, ynolates, novel isocyanates, iron vinylidines, heteroatom functionalized nitroalkenes, and ring closing alkene and enyne metathesis reactions. He has completed the total synthesis of diverse bioactive natural products including papulacandin D, papuamine, showdomycin, milbemycin β3, the palmarumycins and preussomerin G, -calyculin A and the multiple cyclopropane CETP inhibitor U-106305 and structurally related cyclopropane nucleoside FR-900848 and coronanes. He has also published highly flexible methods for the biomimetic total syntheses of resorcylate and meroterpenoid natural products including 15G256β, aigialomycin D, LL-Z1640-2, cruentaren A, hericenone J and macrosporin, amorphastilbol, -hongoquercin A and B, and austalides. Barrett, in collaboration with Brian Hoffman at Northwestern University, has published pioneering work on the synthesis of diverse porphyrazines bearing 8, 6, 4, and 2 thiols, amines or alcohols as peripheral macrocyclic ring substituents and the conversion of these polydentate ligands by the complexation of metal ions both within the macrocyclic cavity and at the periphery to produce diverse multimetallic complexes. Several such complexes are imaging agents for the highly selective detection of cancers in both cells and in vivo and as PDT agents. Additionally, Barrett in collaboration with Simak Ali and R. Charles Coombes in Medicine at Imperial College and Dennis Liotta and James P. Snyder in Emory University has made pioneering contributions to addressing unmet medical need with the invention of highly selective and bioavailable inhibitors of the Cyclin Dependent Kinases including CDK-7 inhibitor ICEC0942, which have been licensed by Carrick Therapeutics for clinical trials to treat Tamoxifen-resistant and other cancers.
