Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry Blog

Check out the cover articles in Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry Issue 11.

The outside cover features work by Michael Doyle and colleagues  at University of Maryland. They talk about catalytic C-H insertion processes in comparison with other approaches for the synthesis of selected synthetic targets, lactones and lactams, which have been of biological or medicinal interest. It is a very interesting and original review article. Read more at

Intramolecular catalytic asymmetric carbon–hydrogen insertion reactions. Synthetic advantages in total synthesis in comparison with alternative approaches
Michael P. Doyle, Maxim Ratnikov and Yu Liu
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2011, 9, 4007-4016
DOI: 10.1039/C0OB00698J

The inside cover represents how Aminoglycoside acetyltransferase AAC(6’) belonging to the aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes (AMEs) does not deactivate the 6’-N-glycinyl tobramycin which attacks the bacterial ribosome (green arrow). In contrast, the parent aminoglycoside tobramycin cannot pass through bacterial resistance mechanism (red arrow).
You can read more about this article by Micha Fridman, Sylvie Garneau-Tsodikova and co-workers at Michigan and Tel Aviv at

Assessment of 6′- and 6′′′-N-acylation of aminoglycosides as a strategy to overcome bacterial resistance
Pazit Shaul, Keith D. Green, Roi Rutenberg, Maria Kramer, Yifat Berkov-Zrihen, Elinor Breiner-Goldstein, Sylvie Garneau-Tsodikova and Micha Fridman
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2011, 9, 4057-4063
DOI: 10.1039/C0OB01133A

Both articles are FREE to download until the end of June.