Gold cascade

Rai-Hsiung Liu and co-workers from National Tsinghua University have reported in ACIE on a gold-catalyzed conversion of an alkynyl ketone to a cyclopentenone.

 

ACIE paper

Cope rearrangement

James Gleason and colleague at McGill University have reported in ACIE on an organocatalytic Cope rearrangement.

 

ACIE paper

Harringtonolide

Hongbin Zhai and co-workers from Peking University have reported in ACIE on the synthesis of harringtonolide through a [3+2] reaction.

 

ACIE paper

Prymnesins

Thomas Ostenfeld Larsen and co-workers at Technical University of Denmark reported in the isolation of B-type prymnesins from microalga. These look like the big brevetoxins.

 

JNP paper

Carbonylative spirolactonization

Mingji Dai and co-workers reported in JACS on a Pd-catalyzed spirolactonization.

 

JACS paper

Spinosyn A synthesis

Mingji Dai and co-workers at Purdue reported in JACS on the synthesis of spinosyn A through a carbonylative macrolactonization.

 

JACS paper

Transamination reaction

Here’s a transamination reaction reported in JACS. Normally pyridoxal-phosphate containing enzymes do this in nature but this is the biomimetic approach.

 

JACS paper

Cochlearenine, N-Ethyl-1α-hydroxy-17-veratroyldictyzine, and Paniculamine syntheses

Richmond Sarpong and co-workers reported in JACS on the synthesis of paniculamine.

 

JACS paper

Psiguadial B synthesis

Sarah Reisman and co-workers have reported in JACS on the synthesis of psiguadial B. The key step was a Wolff rearrangement using a Honeywell UV lamp. The supporting information has a nice picture of the reaction set up. It looks like you just shine the lamp next to the reaction flask with aluminum foil around it.

 

JACS paper