Romo, Liu. ACIEE, 2011, 50, 7537-7540. DOI: 10.1002/anie.201102289 Guest Blogger: SPF What if I’d ask you to synthesize this little molecule with six neighbouring stereocenters from biologically available material? Oh, by the way you can’t use any protecting groups and keep it short! Sounds impossible? Not according to Romo et al.. They’ve achieved the synthesis [...]

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Guest Blogger: See-Arr-Oh Han and Movassaghi, JACS 2011, 10768-10771. DOI: 10.1021/ja204597k ; Qi, Bao, and Tambar, JACS 2011, 10050-10053. DOI: 10.1021/ja203960b . It’s not too often JACS publishes total syntheses anymore, since their role as a general chemistry journal means every newly built molecule competes against quantum dots, in silico simulations,  or new battery materials. So you can [...]

Trauner, Cakmak, Mayer. Nat. Chem., 2011, 3, 543. DOI: 10.1038/nchem.1072 Simple tricyclic morpholine derivative with four stereocenters. Can’t take that much effort, can it? Well, yes it can – and it’s amazing how tricky this little beastie is! Trauner explains in the informative introduction that only one successful synthesis has been completed – taking twenty [...]

Rychnovsky, Gesinski. JACS, 2011, ASAP. DOI: 10.1021/ja204228q Guest Blogger: See-Arr-Oh When I first saw the dimeric gamma-substituted pyran motif in this molecule, I said “Gotta be Rychnovsky” (or maybe Wender).   Throughout his career at UC-Irvine, Scott Rychnovsky has been the master of the TMS-promoted diastereoselective Prins cyclization, which he has applied to the synthesis of [...]

Garg, Zu, Boal. JACS, 2011, ASAP. DOI: 10.1021/ja203227q So – when one ‘old-schools-up’ a synthesis, is that a homage, or just ho-hum?  I guess it comes down to two things – the reactions used, and the overall synthetic strategy.  Use them in the correct manner, and it comes across as the sweetest synthesis; or alternatively [...]

Fukuyama, Tokuyama, Han-ya. ACIEE, 2011, 50, 4884. DOI: 10.1002/anie.201100981 Not a full post, but it’s time to get some of these Chemistry World articles on here.  This once is the most recent, in the June issue, and follows Tohru Fukuyama’s synthesis on Conophylline – a really neat piece of work, especially when you consider how sensitive [...]