Chemical Science Blog

US scientists have made new pleuromutilin-like compounds that show promise as leads for the development of new antibiotics. Erik Sorensen and colleagues made the compounds in approximately 11 steps from 3-allylcyclopent-2-enone by a strategy featuring sequential carbonyl addition reactions.

They found that the compounds displayed activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

‘As we move forward in our effort to expand the structural and stereochemical diversity of the pleuromutilin class of antibiotics, there is a high likelihood that we will discover additional, new compounds with promising activity against M. tuberculosis and possibly resistant strains of TB as well as other bacteria,’ say the team.

Download the article, which is free to access in Chemical Science.

Hydrogen is explosive – it’s one of the first things children learn in their chemistry classes.

This is a serious drawback for the catalytic hydrogenation of multiple bonds, one of the most widely used reactions in organic synthesis. But now Steven Ley and colleagues at the University of Cambridge, UK, have improved the safety profile of both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalytic hydrogenations using flow chemistry.

In their Chemical Science Edge article, the group describe their ‘Tube-in-Tube’ reactor/injector and a novel computer-assisted bubble counting technique to measure the levels of hydrogen uptake.

Read the article for free and leave your comments below. If you’d like to be seen with the best, submit to Chemical Science today.

Also of interest:
Ten key issues in modern flow chemistry – a ChemComm Highlight in Chemistry article by Andreas Kirschning and colleagues

A high profile white paper A Sustainable Global Society: How Can Materials Chemistry Help? was launched internationally on 27 March.

The output of the Chemical Sciences and Society Summit (CS3) 2010, which took place in London, September 2010, outlines five key areas in which materials chemists, through collaboration with other scientists, industry and policy makers, can seize exciting opportunities to address global challenges.  This project was driven by the RSC and is a collaboration between the chemical societies of China, Germany, Japan, the US, the UK and national funding bodies.  Around 30 leading materials chemists from the participating nations participated in CS3 2010 and the white paper is a reflection of the outcome of the summit, in particular their view of the future direction for materials chemistry.

View the official website of the white paper.

Read the 27 March press release.

This month sees the following articles in Chemical Science that are in the top ten most accessed:-

Why not take a look at the articles today and blog your thoughts and comments below.

A synthesis of strychnine by a longest linear sequence of six steps 
David B. C. Martin and Christopher D. Vanderwal 
Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 649-651, DOI: 10.1039/C1SC00009H, Edge Article 

Transition metal-catalyzed cross coupling with N-acyliminium ions derived from quinolines and isoquinolines 
Thomas J. A. Graham, Jason D. Shields and Abigail G. Doyle 
Chem. Sci., 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C1SC00026H, Edge Article 

Dialkylbiaryl phosphines in Pd-catalyzed amination: a user’s guide 
David S. Surry and Stephen L. Buchwald 
Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 27-50, DOI: 10.1039/C0SC00331J, Perspective 

Enantioselective silver-catalyzed propargylation of imines 
Hanna M. Wisniewska and Elizabeth R. Jarvo 
Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 807-810, DOI: 10.1039/C0SC00613K, Edge Article 

Chemoselective enrichment for natural products discovery 
Antoinette Y. Odendaal, Darci J. Trader and Erin E. Carlson 
Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 760-764, DOI: 10.1039/C0SC00620C, Edge Article 

Gold(i)-catalyzed intermolecular (4 + 2) cycloaddition of allenamides and acyclic dienes 
Hélio Faustino, Fernando López, Luis Castedo and José L. Mascareñas 
Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 633-637, DOI: 10.1039/C0SC00630K, Edge Article 

Palladium-catalyzed coupling of functionalized primary and secondary amines with aryl and heteroaryl halides: two ligands suffice in most cases 
Debabrata Maiti, Brett P. Fors, Jaclyn L. Henderson, Yoshinori Nakamura and Stephen L. Buchwald 
Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 57-68, DOI: 10.1039/C0SC00330A, Edge Article 

Total synthesis of diazonamide A 
Robert R. Knowles, Joseph Carpenter, Simon B. Blakey, Akio Kayano, Ian K. Mangion, Christopher J. Sinz and David W. C. MacMillan 
Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 308-311, DOI: 10.1039/C0SC00577K, Edge Article 

Coordination chemistry of group 13 monohalides 
Dragoslav Vidovic and Simon Aldridge 
Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 601-608, DOI: 10.1039/C0SC00508H, Minireview 

Stable singlet carbenes as mimics for transition metal centers 
David Martin, Michele Soleilhavoup and Guy Bertrand 
Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 389-399, DOI: 10.1039/C0SC00388C, Perspective 

Fancy submitting an article to Chemical Science ? Then why not submit to us today or alternatively email us your suggestions.

US scientists have reported the preparation and synthetic applications of sulfinimines derived from benzoquinone monoketals. The method provides the first direct access to a variety of enantioenriched 4-aminocyclohexadienones, which possess synthetic handles for further elaboration to alkaloid natural products, say the researchers.

They demonstrated the the utility of the method in a short, enantioselective total synthesis of the natural product 3-demethoxyerythratidinone.

Read more:
Benzoquinone-derived sulfinyl imines as versatile intermediates for alkaloid synthesis: Total synthesis of (–)-3-demethoxyerythratidinone
K V Chuang, R Navarro and S E Reisman, Chem. Sci., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/c1sc00095k

UK scientists have come up with a new design rule for organic photovoltaics (OPVs), which could lead to improved solar cells.

Until recently, many of the polymers studied for OPVs had originally been developed for the more mature organic light emitting diode (OLED) and organic field effect transistor fields. For OLEDs, a high photoluminescence (PL) emission yield is a prerequisite, and this was also thought to be a positive indicator of a polymer’s OPV suitability.

But, by comparing the photophysics and photovoltaic performance of two different polymer–fullerene blends, James Durrant and colleagues have demonstrated that a high PL yield is not necessarily a positive attribute for polymers for OPV. OPV polymers should not, in general, exhibit strong photoluminescence which spectrally overlaps with fullerene absorption.

Read Energy versus electron transfer in organic solar cells: a comparison of the photophysics of two indenofluorene: fullerene blend films for free today to find out more.