Privileged Chiral Photocatalysts

Proud to present Riley’s design for a modular, synthetically flexible, and intuitively tunable chiral photocatalyst based on the canonical PyBox family of chiral Lewis acid catalysts. Thanks to Lea Hämmerling and Eli Zysman-Coleman for a …

Transposed Paternò–Büchi reaction

Tahoe, Omar, and Jesse report a new approach to oxetane synthesis that turns the classical mechanism of the Paternò–Büchi reaction on its head. Proud of our contribution to the 15th anniversary Chem Sci collection.

Oxygen migration into C–C bonds

How do you functionalize a C–C bond? Cade, Caitlin, Matthieu, and Felix have a compelling method for migrating an oxygen atom into an unstrained C(sp3)–C(sp3) bond. In cyclic contexts, this enables the editing of a …

Direct lactonization of carboxylates

In our second collaborative publication with the Paton group as part of SuPRCat, Katie led a terrific team (Rodrigo, Mihai, Grace, and Sam) to show that base-metal complexes of carboxylic acids can engage in direct …

Temperature control in metallaphotoredox

In a terrific collaborative project with Eli Lilly and the Stahl lab, Caitlin, Max, and Dylan report a method for the synthesis of modified carbohydrates through metallaphotoredox cross-ketonization. Interestingly, this study revealed a profound dependence …

Asymmetric DPM rearrangement

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 …

TA Award for Katie

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 …

Truxinate Org Syn Prep

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 …

Understanding photocatalytic aziridination

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, …