Here’s a behind the scenes look at one of our newest papers in JACS that highlights some nickel chemistry that we have developed!  Phil has been interested for quite awhile now in transition metal cross-coupling methodology.  A few ideas with various metals have bounced around the group, but unfortunately nothing managed to stick.  Fortunately, Pep (commonly referred to as Dr. …

HELLO AND WELCOME TO MARS!!: This post chronicles the path that we took to solve a 45 YEAR OLD PROBLEM and how this led to our exploration of privileged strained ring systems that look like they come from another planet. It all started in late 2014 when we were approached by Pfizer to provide a kilo-scale synthesis of [1.1.1]Bicyclopentylamine – that’s right…..1KG!! …

Hello! I worked on this rather atypical paper and am here to tell you a little about how it progressed on the ground. As always, how the paper looks when it’s finished shares little resemblance to the journey. This is our only molecule that has its own youtube video. A long long time ago in 2012, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) …

Our latest installment in sterol synthesis just came out in JACS, which describes a very interesting reaction in my opinion. While you can read all about the reaction development and the synthesis in the paper, I would like to share about some ‘behind-the-scene’ stories. As chemists, I find it strange and surprising how risk adverse many of us are when …

They used to say that if you thought you had discovered something new in chemistry, you didn’t speak Russian. That is, chances are your “new” discovery was buried somewhere in the Russian Journal of Organic Chemistry, abbreviated Zh. Org. Khim. Well, we were pleased earlier this week to find a new reaction discovered in Angewandte! This directing group looked familiar …