Another Nazarov? Or not.

Zhang-Jie Shi and co-workers at Peking University have reported in Organic Letters on a palladium catalyzed cyclization process, which at first glance looked like it may be a Nazarov reaction but they proved that it probably is not a Nazarov reaction because of the observed kinetic isotope effect when they replaced the aryl hydrogens with deuteriums.

OL paper

Acortatarins A and B syntheses

Derek Tan and co-workers at Sloan Kettering have reported in Organic Letters on their syntheses of acortatarins A and B.

OL paper

Syntheses through cascade dimerization

Andrew Lawrence and co-workers at Australian National University have reported in Organic Letters on the syntheses of some polycyclic natural products, incarviditone and incarvilleatone.

OL paper

Jiadifenin synthesis

Hongbin Zhai and co-workers at SIOC have reported in ACIE on the synthesis of jiadifenin.  The key [2+2] installed the methyl ester substituent.

ACIE paper

Englerin synthesis

Susumi Hatakeyama and co-workers at Nagasaki University have reported in JOC on the synthesis of englerin.

JOC paper

Callipeltoside synthesis

Steven Ley and co-workers have reported in ACIE on the synthesis of callipeltoside.

ACIE paper

Presilphiperfolan-1-ol synthesis

Stoltz and colleague have reported in ACIE on the enantioselective syntheses of some sesquiterpenoid biosynthetic precursors.  The 5,6-ring system was made from an intramolecular Diels-Alder.

ACIE paper

Cyclopropanol ring opening

Jin Kun Cha and co-workers at Wayne State University have reported in ACIE on a ring opening of cyclopropanol using stoichiometric diethyl zinc.

ACIE paper

Selective C-H activation process

Konstantin Bryliakov and co-workers at the Boreskov Institute of Catalysis in Russia have reported in Organic Letters on a selective C-H activation process.

OL paper

Double benzylic rearrangement

Angel Montana and co-workers at the University of Barcelona have reported in Tetrahedron on a double benzylic rearrangement.

Tetrahedron paper