Ring Expansion via Stevens Rearrangement

Maria Valpuesta and co-workers from the Universidad de Malaga have published in the European Journal of Organic Chemistry on a Stevens rearrangement approach to synthesize substituted benzazepines.

EUropean JOC paper

1,3-Dipolar Cycloaddition

Mehdi Ghandi and co-workers at the University of Tehran have published in Tetrahedron on a 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition process between 3-acetyl coumarins and isatin.  What’s interesting is the solvent  determines if there is a deacetylation – in the case of methanol you lose the acyl group and in toluene, the acetyl remains in tact.

Tetrahedron paper

Hydrovinylation accross Dienes

Dieter Vogt has published in ACIEE on a catalytic asymmetric hydrovinylation of 1,3-dienes using cobalt.

ACIEE paper

Four to Five Ring Expansion

Jason Kingsbury and co-workers from Boston College have published in Organic Letters on the use of TMS-diazomethane to expand a cyclobutanone to a cyclopentanone.

OL paper

Englerin A Synthesis

Emmanuel Theodorakis and co-workers at UCSD have published in Organic Letters on a synthesis of englerin A where they used a rhodium catalyzed [4+3] reaction between a furan and an alpha-diazoester to obtain the seven membered ring.

OL paper

Didehydroxylation with Rhenium

Dihydroxylations of olefins is a common technique to make 1,2-diols – however, recently in JACS, the Bergman and Ellman team have published on the reverse reaction using a rhenium catalyst.

JACS paper

Oil Sponge

George John and co-workers at CUNY are designing small molecules that will sequester oil from water.

ACIEE paper

Copper Catalyzed C-H

Felix Tuczek and co-workers at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel have published in ACIEE on a copper catalyzed C-H oxidation of phenols.

ACIEE paper

Baculiferins A-O

Wenhan Lin and co-workers from Peking University have published on the isolation of some pyrrole alkaloids.  Baculiferin M had an IC50 of 0.2 micrograms/mL against HIV-1 IIIB virus expressed in MAGI cells.

Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry paper

Ugi then Staudinger-Aza-Wittig

Tomas Torroba and co-workers from the Universidad de Burgos have published on an Ugi reaction followed by a Staudinger-Aza-Wittig cyclization.  The key was that the carboxylic acid partner in the Ugi reaction was tethered by an azide group.

Tetrahedron paper