(1) In preparation.

Previous Work

Postdoctoral: University of Utah with Eric W. Schmidt

(7)  Moore, B.; Grayson, N.; Scesa, P.; Moore, M.; Ledoux, J.-B.; Gomez-Garrido, J.; Alioto, T.; Michael, T.; Burkhardt, I.; Schmidt, E. A Widespread Metabolic Gene Cluster Family in Metazoans. August 21, 2024. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4859447/v1.

(6)  Scesa, P.; Nguyen, H.; Weiss, P.; Rodriguez, A. P.; Garchow, M.; Ohlemacher, S. I.; Prappas, E.; Caplins, S. A.; Bewley, C. A.; Bohnert, L.; Zellmer, A. J.; Wood, E. M.; Schmidt, E. W.; Krug, P. J. Defensive Polyketides Produced by an Abundant Gastropod Are Candidate Keystone Molecules in Estuarine Ecology. Science Advances 10 (44), eadp8643. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adp8643.

(5)  Scesa, P. D.; Schmidt, E. W. Chapter Fourteen - Brewing Coral Terpenes—A Yeast Based Approach to Soft Coral Terpene Cyclases. In Methods in Enzymology; Rudolf, J., Ed.; Academic Press, 2024; Vol. 699, pp 373–394. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.mie.2024.03.023.

(4)  Scesa, P. D.; Schmidt, E. W. Pseudopterosin Biosynthesis: Unravelling a Decades Old Problem in Animal Specialized Metabolism. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2025, 147 (4), 3072–3079. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c09925.

(3)  Scesa, P. D.; Schmidt, E. W. Biomimetic Approach to Diverse Coral Diterpenes from a Biosynthetic Scaffold. Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2023, 62 (39), e202311406. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202311406.

(2)  Cong, Y.; Scesa, P. D.; Schmidt, E. W. AgeMTPT, a Catalyst for Peptide N-Terminal Modification. ACS Synth. Biol. 2022, 11 (11), 3699–3705. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.2c00312.

(1)  Scesa, P. D.; Lin, Z.; Schmidt, E. W. Ancient Defensive Terpene Biosynthetic Gene Clusters in the Soft Corals. Nature Chemical Biology 2022, 18 (6), 659–663. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-022-01027-1.

Doctoral: Florida Atlantic University with Lyndon M. West

(4)  Scesa, P. D.; Roche, S. P.; West, L. Enantioselective Synthesis of (+)-Providencin and Its Unexpected Regioisomer via a Biomimetic Norrish–Yang Cyclization from (−)-Bipinnatin E. Org. Lett. 2024, 26 (6), 1123–1127. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.orglett.3c03604.

(3)  Scesa, P. D.; West, L. M.; Roche, S. P. Role of Macrocyclic Conformational Steering in a Kinetic Route toward Bielschowskysin. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, 143 (19), 7566–7577. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.1c03336.

(2)  Scesa, P.; Wangpaichitr, M.; Savaraj, N.; West, L.; Roche, S. P. A Kinetic Dearomatization Strategy for an Expedient Biomimetic Route to the Bielschowskysin Skeleton. Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2018, 57 (5), 1316–1321. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201711780.

(1)  He, Y.-Q.; Lee Caplan, S.; Scesa, P.; West, L. M. Cyclized 9,11-Secosterol Enol-Ethers from the Gorgonian Pseudopterogorgia Americana. Steroids 2017, 125, 47–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.steroids.2017.06.008.