Dual catalysis

Erick Carreira and co-workers have published in Science on a cooperative catalysis reaction that forms a quaternary carbon center.

 

Science paper

Platinum catalyzed dearomatization

Ken Tanaka and co-workers at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have reported in ACIE on a platinum catalyzed dearomatization reaction.

ACIE paper

Diastereoselective displacement of a bromide

Ulrich Koert and co-workers at Philipps-Universität Marburg have reported in Chemical Communications on a diastereoselective displacement of a bromide – the dispacement is directed by a nearby hydroxyl group.

Chemical Communications paper

Tirandamycin C synthesis

William Roush and colleague at Scripps in Florida have reported on the synthesis of tirandamycin C in Organic Letters.

OL paper

Radical cyclization

Dennis Curran (Pitt) and Armido Studer (Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat) and co-workers have reported in JACS on a radical cascade cyclization where two diastereotopic iodidines in the precursor substrate are involved.

JACS paper

Hasubanan alkaloid syntheses

Sarah Reisman and co-workers have reported in ACIEE on their total syntheses of some hasubanan alkaloids.  Add an “a” and it sounds like hasubanana.

You know all of this total synthesis made me start thinking how science is evolutionary – in other words, there will always be some advancement in our field and people will publish a new paper here and there from their new findings…but there’s another aspect when way back in the day it was fine to just publish a paper and if someone were to try to publish that 20 years later, they would probably have a hard time getting it accepted.

I guess what I’m getting at is:  will there one day be a step above today where all total synthesis papers will have to be accompanied by biological studies?  For the most part – all isolation papers are accompanied by bioassays of some sort so I wouldn’t be surprised if this does happen.  But then again, that would be forcing a chemist to turn into a biologist or making friends with biologists…also to quote Phil Baran from an NIH interview:  “…we get to focus on the chemistry we love to do, and then when we’re done, we let others focus on what they love to do”

ACIEE paper

Alkylation of thioglycoside

Alexei Demchenko and co-workers have published in Organic Letters on a diastereoselective methylation of an ethylthioglycoside.

OL paper

Cram-chelation vs. Felkin-Ahn review

Patrick Walsh and co-workers have published in JACS on a hydroboration/transmetalation sequence of an alkyne followed by a nucleophilic addition onto a ketone.

JACS paper

Spiro-Fused Indanones

William Goldring and co-workers at the Queen’s University Belfast in Ireland have published in Tetrahedron Letters on a Diels-Alder reaction – the substrates here are an alpha-methylene indanone dienophile and a diene with a TMS-ether group.

 

TL paper

(2′R)-2′-Deoxy-2′-C-methyluridine Synthesis

Sebastian Lemaire and co-workers at Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceuticals have published in JOC on an approach to synthesize a methylated nucleotide from uridine – the trick is to selectively protect the 3′ and 5′ alcohols simultaneously using a TIPDS (1,3-(1,1,3,3)-tetraisopropyldisiloxanylidene) protecting group, which will leave the 2′ hydroxy mostly unprotected.

 

JOC paper