Chemical synthesis articles within Nature

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  • News & Views |

    Nature crafts many molecules from common precursors, but this approach isn't always possible in chemical synthesis. A strategy for synthesizing a family of natural products succeeds by ignoring nature's blueprint. See Article p.461

    • Stéphane Quideau

  • News & Views |

    The synthesis of conolidine, a scarce, naturally occurring compound, has enabled the first studies of its pharmacological properties to be carried out. Excitingly, conolidine is a painkiller that seems to have an unusual mechanism of action.

    • Sarah E. Reisman

  • Article |

    There are a large number of chemical transformations in which alkenes act as the reactants and/or the products of the reaction, but methods enabling the facile synthesis of 1,2-disubstituted Z alkenes are scarce. This paper describes catalytic Z-selective cross-metathesis reactions of terminal enol ethers, which have not been reported previously,and allylic amides, used thus far only in E-selective processes. The utility of this methodology is demonstrated by its use in syntheses of anti oxidant C18 (plasm)-16:0 (PC), found in electrically active tissues and implicated in Alzheimer's disease, and the potent immunostimulant KRN7000.

    • Simon J. Meek
    • , Robert V. O’Brien
    •  & Amir H. Hoveyda

  • News & Views Forum |

    Two approaches have emerged for creating libraries of compounds for use in biological screening assays for drug discovery — fragment-based ligand design and diversity-oriented synthesis. Advocates of each approach discuss their favoured strategy.

    • Philip J. Hajduk
    • , Warren R. J. D. Galloway
    •  & David R. Spring

  • News & Views |

    Nature constructs macromolecules with a precision that chemists have struggled to achieve. So a strategy that offers simple routes to large molecules, starting from small templates, could be the next big thing in synthesis. See Letter p.72

    • Christopher Hunter

  • Letter |

    Templates are widely used to arrange molecular components so they can be covalently linked into complex molecules that are not readily accessible by classical synthetic methods. But, as larger structures are targeted, the synthesis of the templates themselves becomes challenging. It is now shown that 'molecular Verniers' can solve this problem: using a template with six binding sites and molecular building blocks with four porphyrins acting as binding sites, a 12-porphyrin nano-ring with a diameter of 4.7 nm is created. The ease and efficiency of this synthesis establishes Vernier templating as a powerful new strategy for producing large monodisperse macromolecules.

    • Melanie C. O’Sullivan
    • , Johannes K. Sprafke
    •  & Harry L. Anderson

  • News & Views |

    Many naturally occurring substances have a 'handedness' that enables them to interact highly specifically with matter or light. The helical features responsible for this can now be replicated in solid, porous films. See Letter p.422

    • Andreas Stein

  • News |

    Automated synthesizers can make complex carbohydrates on demand.

    • Richard Van Noorden

  • Article |

    The backbones of all natural peptides and proteins are composed of amide bonds. In the laboratory, the construction of such bonds generally relies on dehydrative approaches, although there are alternatives. It is now shown that the activation of amines and nitroalkanes with an electrophilic iodine source can lead directly to amide products.

    • Bo Shen
    • , Dawn M. Makley
    •  & Jeffrey N. Johnston

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