DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The potential for photodynamic cancer therapy with the perylenequinone and hypericin structural types is especially noteworthy given recent developments in this area. The proposed program focuses on synthesis of such complex natural products and their analogs by mimicking biological oxidative systems. Methods to form C-C bonds via oxidative C-H bond activation while establishing axial chirality will be developed using chiral oxidative catalysts. The possibility of selectivity in these transformations with respect to complex substrates is of significant synthetic potential. If such goals are realized, novel and unique synthetic strategies for the assembly of natural products can be envisioned. Routes to symmetric and dissymmetric chiral binaphthyl, perylenequinone, bisnaphthopyrone, bisanthraquinone, hypericin, and bisflavone natural products are presented.