# Liming Zhang
**Liming Zhang** (张立明) is an organic chemist known for his work in homogeneous gold catalysis (reactions sped up by a dissolved gold compound).[1](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/liming-zhang/) His research group develops new gold-catalyzed reactions, gold ligands, and highly reactive gold-containing intermediates, including Au(I)/Au(III) redox catalysis and the oxidation of alkynes to α-oxo gold carbenes.[2](https://www.chem.ucsb.edu/people/liming-zhang) • [3](https://cn.chem-station.com/interview/cchemist/2015/06/post-5145.html)
| Key facts | |
|---|---|
| Field | Organic synthesis; homogeneous gold catalysis[2](https://www.chem.ucsb.edu/people/liming-zhang) |
| Position | Professor, UC Santa Barbara, since 2013 (joined July 2009)[1](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/liming-zhang/) • [2](https://www.chem.ucsb.edu/people/liming-zhang) |
| Prior post | Assistant professor, University of Nevada, Reno, 2005–2009[1](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/liming-zhang/) |
| Training | Ph.D. University of Michigan, 2003 (Masato Koreeda); postdoc, University of Chicago, 2003–2005 (Sergey A. Kozmin)[1](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/liming-zhang/) |
| Signature work | Gold-catalyzed asymmetric net addition of unactivated propargylic C–H bonds to tethered aldehydes, *Nature Catalysis*, 2021[4](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/research/) |
| Honors | NSF CAREER Award 2008; Amgen Young Investigator's Award 2008; Sloan Research Fellowship 2009[2](https://www.chem.ucsb.edu/people/liming-zhang) • [5](https://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/news/2009/chemistry-professor-awarded-prestigious-sloan-fellowship) |
## Education and early career
Zhang received his B.S. from Nanchang University in 1993, then a master's degree in organic and organometallic chemistry at Nankai University (1993–1996) under Professor Zhengzhi Zhang.[2](https://www.chem.ucsb.edu/people/liming-zhang) • [1](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/liming-zhang/) He moved to the United States for a second M.S. in organic chemistry at the [University of Alabama](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-alabama) (1996–1998) under Professor Michael P. Cava, and completed his Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry and organic chemistry at the University of Michigan (1998–2003) under Professor Masato Koreeda.[1](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/liming-zhang/)
From 2003 to 2005 he was a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Sergey A. Kozmin at the University of Chicago.[1](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/liming-zhang/) During that period he co-authored Gold-Catalyzed Assembly of Heterobicyclic Systems, published in the *Journal of the American Chemical Society* in 2005.[7](https://doi.org/10.1002/chin.200540044)
## Career: Nevada, Reno and UC Santa Barbara
Zhang began his independent career in 2005 as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at the [University of Nevada, Reno](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-nevada-reno), where he stayed until 2009.[1](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/liming-zhang/) • [2](https://www.chem.ucsb.edu/people/liming-zhang) In July 2009 he joined the Department of Chemistry and [Biochemistry](https://www.edgepedia.org/biochemistry) at UC Santa Barbara as an assistant professor, was promoted to associate professor in 2011, and has been professor since 2013.[1](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/liming-zhang/) • [2](https://www.chem.ucsb.edu/people/liming-zhang)
## Research: gold catalysis
The group's central focus is homogeneous gold catalysis. One line of work is Au(I)/Au(III) redox catalysis and the Au-catalyzed oxidation of alkynes, which gives direct access to α-oxo gold carbenes from alkynes, essentially making C–C triple bonds equivalent to α-diazo ketones.[2](https://www.chem.ucsb.edu/people/liming-zhang) His *Accounts of Chemical Research* article A Non-Diazo Approach to α-Oxo Gold Carbenes via Gold-Catalyzed Alkyne Oxidation describes this non-diazo strategy from UCSB.[8](https://doi.org/10.1021/ar400181x)
A recurring problem in asymmetric gold catalysis is geometric: the ligand–gold–substrate arrangement is nearly linear, about 180°, which keeps the ligand far from the reactive substrate and makes conventional chiral ligands ineffective. To address this, the group developed bifunctional biaryl-2-ylphosphine ligands carrying a remote Lewis or Brønsted basic group, enabling metal–ligand cooperation in gold(I) catalysis.[4](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/research/) A parallel 2014 design, a P,N-bidentate ligand incorporating a C2-symmetric piperidine ring, enabled enantioselective intramolecular cyclopropanation by α-oxo gold carbene intermediates generated in situ.[10](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25431180/)
## Representative work
His 2021 *Nature Catalysis* paper, Gold-catalyzed asymmetric net addition of unactivated propargylic C–H bonds to tethered aldehydes (*Nat. Catal.* 2021, 4, 164–171), reported an asymmetric gold-catalyzed addition of unactivated propargylic C–H bonds across tethered aldehydes.[4](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/research/)
## Awards and honors
Zhang received a $500,000 National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2008 and the Amgen Young Investigator's Award in 2008.[2](https://www.chem.ucsb.edu/people/liming-zhang) • [5](https://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/news/2009/chemistry-professor-awarded-prestigious-sloan-fellowship) In February 2009, while an assistant professor at Reno, he was named an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, a two-year $50,000 fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation supporting exceptional young researchers early in their careers.[5](https://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/news/2009/chemistry-professor-awarded-prestigious-sloan-fellowship)
## Recent directions (2024–2026)
A 2024 *JACS* paper showed that cooperative gold(I) catalysis of cyclic ketone enol carbonates gives highly enantioselective access to cyclic ketones bearing α tertiary chiral centers, including the challenging 2-methylsuberone.[11](https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9bn6f248)
In glycosylation chemistry, the group's directed SN2 approach uses a directing group that converts α donors to β products and β donors to α products, with only two linear steps needed to install a designed leaving group.[4](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/research/) The resulting paper, A broadly applicable stereospecific glycosylation, was published in *Nature Synthesis* on 12 August 2025 with Zhang as corresponding author,[12](https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-025-00846-z) and UCSB described it as solving a decades-long challenge by enabling reliable, automated synthesis of some of biology's most complex molecules.[13](https://science.ucsb.edu/news/new-method-synthesizing-carbohydrates-paves-way-biomedical-advances)
[Gold catalysis](https://www.edgepedia.org/gold-catalysis) work has continued through 2025: a 2025 *JACS* paper used propargylic alcohol as a key substrate motif for enantioselective gold-catalyzed enyne cycloisomerization (*J. Am. Chem. Soc.* 2025, 147, 27207–27212).[4](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/research/) The group's stated interests are novel chemical transformations in transition-metal catalysis, directed SN2 glycosylation, and unnatural amino acid synthesis.[4](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/research/)
## References
1. [Liming Zhang – Zhang Lab (Curriculum Vitae)](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/liming-zhang/)
2. [Liming Zhang | Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, UC Santa Barbara](https://www.chem.ucsb.edu/people/liming-zhang)
3. [被人们遗忘的金钥匙・构筑多样分子从打开碳碳键开始ー张立明教授 | 化学空间 Chem-Station](https://cn.chem-station.com/interview/cchemist/2015/06/post-5145.html)
4. [Research – Zhang Lab](https://zhang.chem.ucsb.edu/research/)
5. [Chemistry professor awarded prestigious Sloan Fellowship (University of Nevada, Reno)](https://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/news/2009/chemistry-professor-awarded-prestigious-sloan-fellowship)
6. [Development of Asymmetric Cooperative Gold Catalysis and Beyond (NIH R35-GM139640)](https://grantome.com/grant/NIH/R35-GM139640-01)
7. [Gold-Catalyzed Assembly of Heterobicyclic Systems (ChemInform record)](https://doi.org/10.1002/chin.200540044)
8. [A Non-Diazo Approach to α-Oxo Gold Carbenes via Gold-Catalyzed Alkyne Oxidation (Accounts of Chemical Research)](https://doi.org/10.1021/ar400181x)
9. [Recent Advances in the Gold-Catalyzed Reactions of Propargyl Esters (Accounts of Chemical Research)](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.accounts.3c00057)
10. [Enantioselective Oxidative Gold Catalysis Enabled by a Designed Chiral P,N-Bidentate Ligand (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2014)](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25431180/)
11. [Catalytic Enantioselective Protonation of Gold Enolates Enabled by Cooperative Gold(I) Catalysis – eScholarship](https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9bn6f248)
12. [A broadly applicable stereospecific glycosylation – Nature Synthesis](https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-025-00846-z)
13. [New Method for Synthesizing Carbohydrates Paves Way for Biomedical Advances | UCSB](https://science.ucsb.edu/news/new-method-synthesizing-carbohydrates-paves-way-biomedical-advances)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Physical world and mathematics › Physical and mathematical scientists › Chemists › Researchers in organic synthesis, organometallic, and medicinal chemistry › Cross-coupling and transition-metal catalysis*
*Initially written Sep 21, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 25, 2026; Oct 15, 2026 · Last review: Sep 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license