UW-Madison Department of Chemistry
Sam, Steven, and Tahoe have a new paper on the asymmetric di-pi-methane rearrangement up on JOC today. This one is an homage to Howard Zimmerman, the pioneering organic photochemist who discovered the reaction and studied it throughout his career at Wisconsin.
Ellie, Zoe, and Rodrigo report a Brønsted acid catalyzed asymmetric [2π + 2σ] cycloaddition in JACS, providing a straightforward route to rigid chiral bicycles in highly enantioenriched form. A terrific collaboration with GSK and Corteva through the SynCat consortium.
Congratulations to our teammate Katie, who received one of three Organic Outstanding TA Award from the Department! Undergraduate teaching in Chemistry is a huge communal effort: every semester, we hire ~180 talented chemists to lead ~300 laboratory and discussion sections, so this is a tremendous honor.
Our star undergraduate Rodrigo wondered if a commercial chiral Brønsted acid could be used in our asymmetric photochemistry instead of the optimal BINOL-derived triflimide we originally used. The answer is yes! Rodrigo reports the enantioselective synthesis of δ-truxinates on 2 gram scale in Org Syn. Special thanks to Yu-Che Chang in the Brown group for …
Alana, Mihai, and Arindam formed an unstoppable collaboration team through the SuPRCat CCI with the Paton and Damrauer groups to understand a new, remarkably general method for photocatalytic alkene aziridination. A combination of preparative, computational, and spectroscopic studies paint a very clear picture of this reaction mechanism. Now live on ACS Catalysis.
We had a great collaboration with the Schmidt group on an AI model for predicting the emission spectra of Ir complexes. Based on a big data set collected and published by the Bernhard group. Now on ChemPhysChem!
Jesse, Tahoe, Wes, and Yerin have a terrific new paper in JACS today about the long road to an asymmetric catalytic Paternò–Büchi reaction. A great collaboration with Kent and the Wright lab at UW.
In JACS today, Ellie, Hyung Joo, and Matt report a general approach to the truillate family of natural products enabled by solid state photochemistry. Synthetically, this paper complements the route to the truxinates we published last year and provides comprehensive control over the construction of the large class of dimeric cyclobutane natural products. Special thanks …