Chlorizidine A

Chambers Hughes and co-workers at Scripps have reported in Organic Letters on the isolation of chlorizidine A, which had low micromolar LC50 values against some cancer cell lines from NCI. Another interesting point in this paper is the way they assigned the chiral carbon stereocenter as S from an X-ray crystal structure of the molecule, which also incorporated a benzene molecule. They determined the stereocenter using the Flack parameter.

OL paper

Flack parameter ref (Acta Cryst)

Carbon-carbon coupling constants for stereochemical determination

R. Thomas Williamson and co-workers at Merck have reported in Organic Letters on the use of DFT to calculate and assign stereochemistry from the C-C coupling constants in NMR.

OL paper

Secondary alcohol stereochemistry

Ion Ghiviriga at the University of Florida has reported in JOC on the use of NOESY1D to determine the stereochemistry of secondary alcohols by converting the alcohol to an MPA ester.

JOC paper