Chemical Communications Blog

On behalf of the ChemComm Editorial Board, I am delighted to welcome Professor Yong-Qiang Tu as the new ChemComm Associate Editor for organic chemistry.

Professor Tu is a council member of Chinese Chemistry Society and the president of Gansu Chemistry Society. His current research interests centre on tandem rearrangement reactions and their application to the total syntheses of bioactive alkaloids, synthetic studies of biologically active natural products, and the construction of C-C and C-N bonds via C-H functionalisations.

Professor Tu’s editorial office is now open for submissions, welcoming urgent communications highlighting the latest advances in organic chemistry.

Find out more about Professor Tu’s research by reading these exciting articles:

Total synthesis of (±)-maistemonine and (±)-stemonamide
Zhi-Hua Chen, Yong-Qiang Zhang, Zhi-Min Chen, Yong-Qiang Tu and Fu-Min Zhang
Chem. Commun., 2011,47, 1836-1838, DOI: 10.1039/C0CC02612C, Communication

Enantioselective bromination/semipinacol rearrangement for the synthesis of β-bromoketones containing an all-α-carbon quaternary center
Hui Li ,  Fu-Min Zhang ,  Yong-Qiang Tu ,  Qing-Wei Zhang ,  Zhi-Min Chen ,  Zhi-Hua Chen and Jian Li
Chem. Sci., 2011,2, 1839-1841, DOI: 10.1039/C1SC00295C

Are you an organic chemist based in North America? Submit your research to Michael Krische, ChemComm North American Associate Editor for organic chemistry.

Scientists in China have developed a quick and clean way to reduce nitroarenes to aminoarenes, which are common intermediates for making dyestuffs, pharmaceuticals and agricultural chemicals.

Sodium borohydride and molecular hydrogen are commonly used for this reaction but their hydrogen elements cannot reduce nitroarenes under mild reaction conditions. Usually, expensive noble-metal catalysts are necessary to activate the hydrogen elements in the reductants.

Here, the researchers have used a vanadium-doped porous TiO₂ with highly active hydrogen, which can instantly (<10s) and selectively reduce nitroarenes to aminoarenes under ambient conditions without catalysts. After being consumed by nitroarenes, the active hydrogen species can be regenerated by irradiating the V-doped TiO₂ with UV light.

Link to journal article
Porous vanadium-doped titania with active hydrogen: a renewable reductant for chemoselective hydrogenation of nitroarenes at ambient condition
J Su et al
Chem. Commun., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/c2cc33969b

A new clinically used cancer drug thought to work by inhibiting kinase enzymes also strongly inhibits carbonic anhydrase (CA) enzymes, reveal scientists in Italy.

Scientists did not evaluate the CA inhibition activity of pazopanib before its approval for the treatment of a variety of different cancers, including lung, breast and ovarian cancers. But Claudiu Supuran and colleagues recognised part of the drug’s structure – a primary sulfonamide moiety – is often found in drugs that can inhibit CAs. So they tested pazopanib along with some other related structures and found that the drug did indeed inhibit CAs. They estimate that a significant proportion of the drug’s therapeutic effect on hypoxic tumors is due to its strong CA inhibitory properties.

Link to journal article
Polypharmacology of sulfonamides: Pazopanib, a multitargeted receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor in clinical use, potently inhibits several mammalian carbonic anhydrases
J-Y Winum et al
Chem. Commun., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/c2cc33415a