Archive for October, 2010

Nobel Prize to Organic Chemistry

Congratulations to  Richard Heck (University of Delaware, USA), Ei-ichi Negishi (Purdue University, USA) and Akira Suzuki (Hokkaido University, Japan), the recipients of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

These three chemists have been working independently on palladium-catalysed cross coupling reactions to make C-C bonds to design new organic molecules. Their chemical methods are widely used by the chemical communities  to develop new compounds and molecules with applications in pharmaceuticals, agriculture and the electronic industry.

I was listening to Professor Negishi this morning on his first interview live from Stockholm and he was absolutely delighted with the news. He was awoken by a phone call that told him he was one of the Chemistry Nobel Prize winners – what a great way of waking up in the morning!

Negishi said that he was ‘extremely happy – this means a lot’.   ‘I have been dreaming about this prize for half a century, since I came to America and encountered several Nobel laureates, when I realised it was not a story – it was a reality which in principle could happen to anyone, including myself.’ 
Professor Negishi, 2010 was your turn! Congratulations.

Neghisi, Suzuki and Heck will go to Stockohlm next December to receive this very well deserved prestigious prize. From Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry we wanted to send our most sincere appreciation and admiration to these three pioneers of organic chemistry.

Read more from Chemistry World here.

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OBC Accepted Manuscripts: publishing your research even faster

In a fast moving subject field, you need your research to be available to the community as soon as possible.

At Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry (OBC) we are working with our authors to make this happen. That’s why you can now choose to have the unedited and unformatted version of your article published shortly after acceptance as an Accepted Manuscript.

This new, free service from RSC Publishing allows you to make your results available, in citable form, before publication of the edited article. Published on the website as a downloadable pdf file, your Accepted Manuscript is readily accessible to the people you want to read it.

Of course, all OBC articles will continue to receive the current high quality editing and formatting service from RSC Publishing’s professional team of technical editors. Once the fully edited and formatted Advance Article is published the Accepted Manuscript version of your article will become unavailable.

Check out these examples of recent Accepted Manuscripts free:

Microwave and flow syntheses of Pseudomonas quinolone signal (PQS) and analogues
James Hodgkinson, Warren Galloway, Shreya Saraf, Ian R Baxendale, Steven V Ley, Mark Ladlow, Martin Welch      
and David Spring
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2010, DOI: 10.1039/C0OB00652A

A ferrocene functionalized rotaxane host system capable of the electrochemical recognition of chloride
Nicholas Henley Evans and P D Beer
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2010, DOI: 10.1039/C0OB00458H

More information about OBC Accepted Manuscripts can be found on our blog.

Wouldn’t it be great to have your research read by your peers almost as soon as you know your manuscript has been accepted? Go online to submit your next article  to OBC now: we look forward to receiving your work.

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HOT: 4 steps to (+)-pestalazine B

Carlos Perez-Balado and Angel R. de Lera at University of Vigo have designed a convergent and versatile synthetic route to the preparation on this heterodimeric diketopiperazine alkaloid in just 4 steps.

This versatile methodology allows the synthesis of several diastereomers.

The paper is a nice trip through the unexpected paths of organic chemistry that lead you to the right compound.  Discover all of this and much more in this HOT paper. We loved it, the referees loved it and I’m sure you will love it too!

Free to access until the end of October

Concise total synthesis and structural revision of (+)-pestalazine B
Carlos Pérez-Balado and Ángel R. de Lera
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2010, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0OB00531B , Paper

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HOT Mycolactone core: Two synthetic approaches

Kwang-Seuk Ko,  Matthew D. Alexander, Michael D. Burkart and colleagues at University of California at San Diego, give us two different synthetic routes to make one product: the macrolide core of the mycolactone polyketides.

As you can see, organic synthesis is a matter of choice!

Read about the story of these new synthetic methods, the authors’ different approaches to their findings and how they succeded with the synthesis of their targeted molecule.

Free to access until the end of October

Synthetic studies on the mycolactone core
Kwang-Seuk Ko, Matthew D. Alexander, Shaun D. Fontaine, James E. Biggs-Houck, James J. La Clair and Michael D. Burkart
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2010, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0OB00540A, Paper

Read Michael Burkart’s story of this paper on the comments!

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HOT: Proctolin structure revealed

Judith Howard, Olga Chetina and colleagues at University of Durham ellucidate the crystal structure of Proctolin [Arg-Tyr-Leu-Pro-Thr], a much studied insect neuropeptide.

This is a very important step towards the design of the ideal insecticide, highly selective, environmentally friendly, safe and of course effective.  It becomes even more relevant when we think about malaria and mosquitoes resistance to insecticides as one of the main problems to control the spread of the disease.

‘We have revealed the structure of Proctolin [Arg-Tyr-Leu-Pro-Thr]. The molecular association is very unusual for small peptides and it is hoped that the structure elucidation will enable the design of new insecticides towards the effective control of malaria’ say the authors of the paper.

I certainly hope so and I also think research like this one takes us a step closer!

Read the full paper that will be free to access until the end of October.

Crystal structure of the insect neuropeptide proctolin.
Judith A. K. Howard, Dmitry S. Yufit, Olga V. Chetina, Simon J. Teat, Silvia C. Capelli and Philip Pattison
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2010, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0OB00345J, Paper

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